Netflix Ditches Silverlight With HTML5 Support In IE11

An anonymous reader writes "Netflix today announced that it has finally taken the first step towards ditching Silverlight for HTML5, largely thanks to Microsoft, no less. The company has been working closely with the Internet Explorer team to implement its proposed 'Premium Video Extensions' in IE11 on Windows 8.1, meaning if you install the operating system preview released today, you can watch Netflix content using HTML5 right now. Back in April, Netflix revealed its plans to use HTML5 video in any browser that implements its proposed 'Premium Video Extensions.' These extensions allow playback of premium video (read: with DRM protection) directly in the browser without the need to install plugins such as Silverlight or Flash."

Comments

Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how it touts the fact that you don't need to install flash or silverlight but you still need to install Netflix's DRM stuff to decode the data. And if your operating system or machine isn't supported by Netflix, then you can't view the data. I don't see how this is any better than flash or silverlight. With those, you just need to install either flash or silverlight but now you need to install a DRM from each provider.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how it touts the fact that you don't need to install flash or silverlight but you still need to install Netflix's DRM stuff to decode the data. And if your operating system or machine isn't supported by Netflix, then you can't view the data. I don't see how this is any better than flash or silverlight. With those, you just need to install either flash or silverlight but now you need to install a DRM from each provider.

The joke is that they did their content licensing deals based on MS drm( so that it is stipulated that on desktop it has to have their magic sauce because it's soooo unrippable) because of MS influence, the meat of the joke is that MS discontinued silverlight.

that's why you have netflix clients on phones and what have you but the only desktop platform is with silverlight!

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

I think some HR departments are still looking for silverlight senior developers...

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

Well for one you're not using flash, the notoriously bad video player that wastes power and cycles both.

Re:Still need to install something

[letsief]

It's not quite as bad as you're suggesting. You don't need to install a different DRM plugin for each content provider. You just need different plugins for different forms of DRM. At least in practice, I suspect, most users (i.e., those running common browsers and operating systems) won't have to install anything- the DRM plugins will ship with the browser. That's the case now with the Chromebooks and Windows 8.1/IE11.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

if it doesn't crash every 30 (as silverlight does for me) seconds it will be better

Re:Still need to install something

[devent]

Please tell me how Firefox will ship a patent laden and proprietary DRM plugins?
For that matter, also Chromium (open source Chrome)?

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this means that the Silverlight is not responding messages will be a thing of the past, or if the silverlight freeze was in the DRM code and will continue under HTML5.

Re:Still need to install something

[denis-The-menace]

HELL NO!

Protecting content is job #1

you enjoying the is job #2

Re:Still need to install something

[LordLimecat]

Its almost like the discussion about having DRM support in HTML 5 was for real-world practical reasons, rather than just killing puppies and taking your freedom.

Its better than flash and silverlight because this could become standard if everyone takes their head out of the sand and accepts that HTML5 video needs DRM support to be attractive to the people making video.

Re:Still need to install something

[prelelat]

Yeah but they never were, they were using silverlight which was/is considerably better. I think the only reason netflix is dumping it, is because microsoft have basically gave it an EOL. I just hope the new one works on *nix.

Re:Still need to install something

[prelelat]

They won't they will require you to download it just like most other plugins you get for FF. That's how it should be at least. I'm not sure what chrome will do. I would hope they would have it as a download, while I would probably install it at home I wouldn't want extra stuff shoved in from a fresh install.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox? Dude, this is 2013, we're talking about REAL browsers...like... SeaMonkey!!! wait a second....

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

Dot-Net, too.

Dot-Net and Silverlight programmers are following in the long, hallowed tradition of the veritable VB Programmer:

* Thinks he (or she) is the shizzle
* Thinks MS is the last, best word in software
* Sees no need to learn another language, ever
* Sees no need to learn another OS/technology (made by someone other than MS), ever

The good news is those folks have a "sell-by" date. The bad news is their monotheistic views will continue to infect companies even while they are going extinct.

Re:Still need to install something

[Lazere]

Simple. Addons. Separate the code into a full addon, then when it's installed ask if they want to install the "Netflix Addon" with a simple yes or no. If yes, download and install the addon, if no, don't. That should keep them clear.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

Open-sores too.

Open-sores programmers are following in the long, hallowed tradition of the veritable Neckbeard Programmer:

* Thinks he (women are not allowed) is the shizzle.
* Thinks the *nix command line is the last, best word in software.
* Sees no need to learn another environment, ever.
* Sees no need to learn another OS/technology that isn't open sores.

The good news is that those folks have a "sell-by" date. The bad news is their monotheistic views will continue to infect companies even while they are going extinct.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, both have a sell by date. The difference is that while the sell-by date of a Microsoft developer is akin to that of a ripe banana, the UNIX programmer's is more akin to that can of baked beans that goes in a survival kit. While generations of Microsoft technologies have come and gone, writing C code in UNIX is much the same as it was 30 years ago. And our beloved command line is still very much alive.

Sometimes the content of an opinion makes actions, behaviors or practices reasonable when a different opinion would make them unreasonable.

Re:Still need to install something

[TemporalBeing]

Its almost like the discussion about having DRM support in HTML 5 was for real-world practical reasons, rather than just killing puppies and taking your freedom.

Its better than flash and silverlight because this could become standard if everyone takes their head out of the sand and accepts that HTML5 video needs DRM support to be attractive to the people distributing MPAA licensed video.

FTFY

Re:Still need to install something

[Em Adespoton]

Its almost like the discussion about having DRM support in HTML 5 was for real-world practical reasons, rather than just killing puppies and taking your freedom.

Its better than flash and silverlight because this could become standard if everyone takes their head out of the sand and accepts that HTML5 video needs DRM support to be attractive to the people selling video.

FTFY.

Interestingly, the times when I've watched stuff on NetFlix, about half of it has been stuff by people who are against DRM (but can't distribute via NetFlix without it).

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

"you still need to install Netflix's DRM stuff to decode the data."

not required

Re:Still need to install something

[AmiMoJo]

It should be possible to create an open source DRM system for those browsers if the patent issues can be worked out, similar to how patents for HTML5 video will be (presumably).

The key is that the DRM system can be verified by the web site. It will likely involve some kind of code signing with a public key. If you compile your own version it won't be signed and the site will refuse to send you video, so many Linux users are still screwed. Binary builds should be possible though, and are of course the primary means of distribution on Windows.

It still sucks of course.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the big deal? The first thing on every new Ubuntu install too is to get the proprietary display drivers. It's literally achieved with one click. Kind of tired with the whole "everything must be open source" mentality. Some things just aren't, and for very good reasons (content protection, IP protection). You can still choose to use 99%-100% open source / libre systems if you like. Learn to live with it.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineering-wise, DRM is so quite simple. I would be quite surprised if there was any way they could have failed at it.

Re:Still need to install something

[bzipitidoo]

Take your own head out of the sand and face it, DRM is a broken concept. It's not only that DRM is unworkable, DRM is contrary to the social good. You think only of the mythical starving artist who deserves a chance to make a living, and skate right past the point that copyright is not the only way or even the best way to profit from artistic endeavor. And you don't think about the millions who are robbed, by this implicit tax, because adding DRM to everything is very costly, and most of all by breaking our implicit social contract to love thy neighbor. Sharing valuable information is more than a courtesy, it's the core of our lives. We are social animals. Artists' bosses will have to accept this eventually.

As an example, do you think it might be a good idea to apply DRM to knives? If a knife refused to function when held by anyone but the owner, you might think criminals could not take your knife and stab you with it, and so it would be safer. They couldn't steal your knife and use it themselves or sell it to a 3rd party. If you were ever convicted of a crime, or diagnosed as mentally troubled, the manufacturer could disable all your knives. Maybe just a speeding or parking ticket would count. This ability could be used to coerce you on other matters, such as being late on paying the rent or utility bills or those parking tickets. Disable your knives until you pay. This could be implemented by making the knife retractable, like a typical utility knife, and adding finger and palm print sensors to the handle. Would need batteries in the handle. The DRM knife would be far bulkier, clumsier, more expensive, and less useful than a knife without DRM. We would also have to outlaw non-DRM knives. Would be quite a task to make sure no one ever makes knives, out of stone, as our ancestors did in the Stone Age, or out of sheet metal or broken glass or who knows what.

Now you may think that's all a strawman. It is not. Trying to apply DRM to knives is just silly. Might not be silly to apply DRM to guns, but knives are just too simple. As silly as it is to apply DRM to knives, it's even sillier to try it on information. Being a physical item, a knife takes some effort to duplicate. Might be easier to make your own design than bother trying to copy another. By comparison, the effort required to share information is trivial.

Re:Still need to install something

[lgw]

An open source module with some trusted way to validate that that is in fact the module running should be fine. There's no need for secrecy about what the code does, after all.

The trick is - how do you keep people from cheating on the code signing? Are you going to trust the browser is validating the module that you asked it to? Eh, that may be good enough - it's not like DRM is ever really secure in the first place.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

And what of OSes and browsers that the DRM "extension" makers choose to not support? Why should they get their talons even deeper into HTML5 instead of using the pre-existing plugin architectures to do this?

Re: Still need to install something

[jd2112]

By any chance are these the same HR departments looking for 5 years of Windows 2012 experience?

Re:Still need to install something

[devent]

Just like Flash and Silverlight?
So why it gets the blessing of the W3C that are suppose to work for the advancement of the Open Web?

Re:Still need to install something

[bws111]

What a load of drivel. Did you just clip that from 'The Adolescent's Guide To Piracy Justification'?

The 'social good'? What the hell is that? You know what would really be for 'the social good'? Free food, shelter, clothing, etc. Therefore, by your impeccable logic you should immediately remove the locks from your house, because those locks are keeping the homeless people out, which is not really 'loving thy neighbor'. Also, any and all anti-theft measures must immediately be removed wherever they are found, because they prevent people from getting what they want.

You're being 'robbed' by DRM? Of what, exactly? What belonged to you that you no longer have? Nothing. If the price of a DRM'ed thing is too high, don't buy it, just like every other product on the planet. If you are unethical, just steal it.

Skate right past the point that copyright is not the best way to profit from artistic endeavor? OK, genius, what is?

Re:Still need to install something

[makomk]

No, it couldn't become standard. You know why? Because the entire point of this is to allow access to proprietary, vendor-specific DRM modules, and those DRM modules are intentionally not compatible with each other. (In fact they pretty much have to be in order to be effective as DRM.) As of this announcement, Netflix supports two mutually incompatible, single-platform DRM stacks for HTML5: Microsoft's PlayReady on IE11 and Windows 8.1, and Google's Widevine on non-rooted Chromebooks manufactured by Google partners. If you're not using one of those two stacks, it's both illegal and impossible to use the HTML5 version of Netflix. Firefox user? Forget it. Chrome user on the desktop? No way!

Suppose for instance that Apple decided to support this part of HTML5. You still wouldn't be able to watch Netflix on Apple platforms, even though they supported HTML5 EME, because they have their own DRM scheme which Netflix and Apple would have to negotiate a license for.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

They wont.

And since the rest of the world is using Chrome, IE, Safari and mobile variants of them, the world will keep on spinning despite the vocal open source advocacy minority, since it will just work.

Re:Still need to install something

[fizzer06]

Mosaic?

Re:Still need to install something

[LordLimecat]

Remind me again whose content makes up 90% of the netflix catalogue (aka the stuff netflix customers care about)?

Oh ok.

Re:Still need to install something

[LordLimecat]

Whether DRM "works" or "is good" is utterly irrelevant. Pandora, Amazon Video, Netflix, Hulu, etc are not going to move to a platform with no DRM; that is a reality of the world we live in.

Your moral assessment of the situation doesnt affect the reality one bit, nor does your attempt to paint me as some huge fan of DRM. For the record, im NOT a huge fan, but again: reality intrudes.

So please dont ask me to defend DRM; I never endorsed it. What im endorsing is the practical, workable idea of baking DRM capabilities directly into the browser since it is a VERY commonly requested feature on the modern web, and as such makes zero sense to exclude it from a industry standard for stupid political reasons.

Re:Still need to install something

[Bert64]

Free food, shelter and clothing would indeed be for the social good. Unfortunately these are physical items which are in finite supply.
Information is not in finite supply, it can be infinitely reproduced.
Information is more like sunlight or air, there is plenty of it.

Artists profited from their work long before copyright. They sold original works (actual originals, not infinitely reproduced copies) and gave live performances.

Re:Still need to install something

[tlhIngan]

No, it couldn't become standard. You know why? Because the entire point of this is to allow access to proprietary, vendor-specific DRM modules, and those DRM modules are intentionally not compatible with each other. (In fact they pretty much have to be in order to be effective as DRM.) As of this announcement, Netflix supports two mutually incompatible, single-platform DRM stacks for HTML5: Microsoft's PlayReady on IE11 and Windows 8.1, and Google's Widevine on non-rooted Chromebooks manufactured by Google partners. If you're not using one of those two stacks, it's both illegal and impossible to use the HTML5 version of Netflix. Firefox user? Forget it. Chrome user on the desktop? No way!

Suppose for instance that Apple decided to support this part of HTML5. You still wouldn't be able to watch Netflix on Apple platforms, even though they supported HTML5 EME, because they have their own DRM scheme which Netflix and Apple would have to negotiate a license for.

Obviously the problem is trying to do this in a web browser. Why should we play video in a web browser?

Why not just do it like we do on Android an iOS? Make it an app. Just download the Netflix app from the Windows/Mac app store and run it to organize your queues and what movies and such you want to watch. Videos play in the app.

No need to hassle with plugins, web browsers and all that. It's already an app everywhere else you go (including set top boxes and Blu-ray players, etc).

One app for Windows, one for OSX, another one for Chrome OS. No more battling between IE, Chrome, Firefox, etc.

Re:Still need to install something

[SJHiIlman]

and for very good reasons (content protection, IP protection)

Those aren't "good reasons"; that's garbage.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

Video DRM is necessary. Take YOUR head out of the sand. Using HTML5 for video right now means that you have to accept the fact that people can download that video and distribute it. My company produces video content to support our software. This content is only able to be viewed by people who pay for support. While using HTML5 opens the videos to the possibility of viewing on many more devices than Flash does, it opens us up to the possibility that one our users could republish our videos outside of our paywall. This is unacceptable.

Re:Still need to install something

[LordLimecat]

My understanding is that W3c EME would allow the vendor to create a single "drm module" which could be used by a W3c EME compliant browser to access the content stream.

Re:Still need to install something

[ducomputergeek]

Take your own head out the sand and look around, most of the population, the 99.5% of people not on slashdot don't give a shit so long as the solution is unobtrusive. Back with iTunes were all DRMed, so long as they could copy to a couple iPods and burn to CD, people didn't care that there was DRM. It was there, but it didn't get in their way. When DRM was removed from most songs, guess what, none of my non-geek friends even noticed. To them there were no change.

Most people I know who aren't computer geeks really don't care. $8 a month to rent access to movies, TV shows, or Music? They shrug and say it's cheaper than buying it all off iTunes or on optical disc of your choice at the store.

So get used to it, DRM is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Re:Still need to install something

[jddimarco]

Netflix really has no choice about DRM. Content holders allow their content to be viewed on Netflix under the assumption that the content will only be viewed, not copied and kept. A DRM-protected channel is what is required for content holders to view that assumption as valid. If content holders began to think that putting their content on Netflix was more like selling a copy than selling a view, then Netflix would have to pay that much more for the content, destroying their business model.

Re:Still need to install something

[Dahamma]

but you still need to install Netflix's DRM stuff to decode the data

Netflix uses Microsoft's Playready DRM (same one they used in Silverlight). There is no "Netflix DRM stuff", MS just built PlayReady into IE11 via HTML5-EME.

Though it's true that it is really a *less* universal solution than Flash or Silverlight, since (unless/until all browsers support EME) it will only work on IE11. They might as well just have made it a Metro app. I assume the reason they are doing this is to "encourage" other browsers to do the same - Google is going to do the same with Chrome (and I think they already have on ChromeOS?)

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that DRM seems to be working exceptionally well for computer games and consoles.

Piracy of games on consoles amount people I know is zero, and piracy of music is at about 100%.

So it's not that DRM doesn't work, it's just that the resources are not in place to implement it everywhere yet.

Re:Still need to install something

[Dahamma]

Why does it need to ship with them? Firefox doesn't ship with Flash, but it can be installed as a plugin (and contains the Adobe Access DRM).

Re:Still need to install something

[quacking duck]

I'd rather they just use Flash. It's not going anywhere on the desktop. And while I don't have it actually installed as a system-wide plug-in, whenever I wanted to watch Netflix on my computer I would do what I do now with other Flash-only content: fire up Chrome with its self-contained Flash plugin.

But no, Netflix had to use Silverlight, which I refuse to install, and now they're going to an even more limited IE11-only extension.

Re:Still need to install something

[ifiwereasculptor]

Its almost like the discussion about having DRM support in HTML 5 was for real-world practical reasons, rather than just killing puppies and taking your freedom.

Its better than flash and silverlight because this could become standard if everyone takes their head out of the sand and accepts that HTML5 video needs DRM support to be attractive to the people renting video.

FTFY.

Re:Still need to install something

[peppepz]

But not on Linux (or any other free operating system). Otherwise the DRM would be ineffective, as one could simply rip the rich, premium videos by running Firefox, the matching Linux plugin and, say, recordmydesktop. DRM plugins for Linux cannot, and will not, happen.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why people make false dichotomies in a world of greys. I buy plenty of movies, but only things that i can exert the full range of fair use upon. I gewt why breaking encryption is illegal, but why isn't illegal to block fair use? Next we'll have people saying the right to vote can't be blocked by the government, but your employer sure can (hey, the freedom of speech works that way, so why not!?).

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should we play video in a web browser?

Why should we view images in a web browser? Why should we submit forms in a web browser? Why should we see hypertext in a web browser?

We'll answer these questions and more on today's episode of The Web: What is it and why do people use it for things?

Re:Still need to install something

[contrapunctus]

If I install flash or silverlight, it's on my whole computer (any browser can use it (I know I can disable individually blah)).
Maybe with this, I can install a plugin on one of my firefox profiles and leave the rest of my computer unpolluted?

Re:Still need to install something

[The Cat]

UNIX, Emacs, terminals, C, GDB and the standard C library will still be used to write code 100 years from now when all the noise of the "latest and greatest" crap has long subsided.

UNIX and Linux are the platform. Everything else is a use case.

Re:Still need to install something

[peppepz]

There is no industry standard for DRM in HTML5. The EME proponents didn't agree on any DRM standard. For stupid political reasons, all theirs.

Before: in order to watch Netflix, you needed an HTML browser AND the Flash plugin.
Now: in order to watch Netflix, you need Internet Explorer 11 on Windows. Firefox, Chrome and Linux users need not apply.
Where's the practical, workable value of this evolution?

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a guess, at best. There can be as many "forms of DRM" as there are companies who wish to use it. If we're fortunate, there will be coalitions of DRM users who share the same plugin, which I would deem likely (as it would save costs) but there can still be a number of coalitions each using their own.

In the end, this doesn't solve any end user problems, only add to them. It serves the interests of the content providers who don't wish to target Flash or Silverlight anymore, because they now have a chance to try to legitimize their shoddy, user-flaying DRM schemes rather than get with the times and realize that DRM is a monkey's paw.

Re: Still need to install something

[seanthegeek9306]

There are ways of recording the screen in windows too...

Re:Still need to install something

[amiga3D]

The problem is companies are having difficulties figuring out how to exploit those technologies. If they can't figure out how to bleed money from people with it then it has no value for them.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you may think that's all a strawman. It is not.

Actually it is.

Trying to apply DRM to knives is just silly.

Of course it is and it isn't analogous to DRM in digital content.

Might be easier to make your own design than bother trying to copy another.

So if DRM is such a problem then make your own design for whatever DRM'd content you are trying to copy, or is dealing with DRM easier than doing that?

Re:Still need to install something

[Chrontius]

Anyone else know how bad Flash on Mac has been for the last decade?

Protip: It's the #1 reason for system-wide Mac crashes over the last decade. I'd rather a Netflix extension that Netflix can be counted on to maintain properly.

Re:Still need to install something

[exomondo]

Artists profited from their work long before copyright. They sold original works (actual originals, not infinitely reproduced copies) and gave live performances.

And they can (and do) do that now, it's the choice of the artist what ideology they subscribe to and if you have an aversion to a particular ideology then support only those that share yours, which you are free to do.

Re:Still need to install something

[exomondo]

Obviously the problem is trying to do this in a web browser. Why should we play video in a web browser?

Why not just do it like we do on Android an iOS? Make it an app.

Because this way to support any platform with a HTML5 browser you only need to build the DRM module for it rather than having to write an app.

Re:Still need to install something

[quacking duck]

Let me know when Netflix releases their html5 extension for the Mac.

I'm saying it would've been better all this time to have had a single devil than two. Flash crashing Macs is a totally moot point as far as Netflix is concerned, because right now Netflix on Mac requires Silverlight, and if someone has Silverlight installed, they almost certainly have Flash installed too.

Re:Still need to install something

[Chrontius]

I've spent a couple years with Silverlight but no Flash since Chrome is good at keeping flash crashes contained. These days, I don't have either.

Frankly, my preferred solution would be a free Netflix app in the Mac App Store so I don't have to sully my system with another background process that only increases my attack surface.

Re:Still need to install something

[exomondo]

But no, Netflix had to use Silverlight, which I refuse to install, and now they're going to an even more limited IE11-only extension.

No they aren't, where did you get that idea from? They aren't moving to an IE11 only extension, the extensions are browser plugins and will be available for many different platforms.

We've been working with Google to implement support for the HTML5 Premium Video Extensions in the Chrome browser, and we've just started using this technology on the Samsung ARM-Based Chromebook. Our player on this Chromebook device uses the Media Source Extensions and Encrypted Media Extensions to adaptively stream protected content. WebCrypto hasn't been implemented in Chrome yet, so we're using a Netflix-developed PPAPI (Pepper Plugin API) plugin which provides these cryptographic operations for now. We will remove this last remaining browser plugin as soon as WebCrypto is available directly in the Chrome browser. At that point, we can begin testing our new HTML5 video player on Windows and OS X.

http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/04/html5-video-at-netflix.html

Re:Still need to install something

[bzipitidoo]

Pandora, Amazon Video, Netflix, Hulu, etc are not going to move to a platform with no DRM

Amazon and Apple most certainly do move platforms with no DRM. These devices are general purpose computers, such as PCs. If they won't move without DRM, then they will go out of business to someone who will, and no one will miss them. The reality of the world we live in is that these idiots of the content cartels have no chance whatsoever of changing reality to suit their dark fantasies of complete control over everyone's information.

What im endorsing is the practical, workable idea of baking DRM capabilities directly into the browser since it is a VERY commonly requested feature on the modern web

Very commonly requested? No it isn't. Only the content cartels want it. Customers do not want DRM. They quickly learn how awful DRM is the first time it unfairly inconveniences them, for instance by forcing unskipable commercials on them, or by crippling their device when it wrongly decides they've infringed copyright. I've heard that ad blockers are the most popular browser plugin. That alone shows that anyone who thinks customers can be forced to accept DRM better think again. But there is much more. iTunes had to offer mp3. Customers had too many problems with formats that have DRM. Windows Vista was another failure, despite MS's claims to the contrary, and that was in large part due to the DRM they insisted on hobbling Vista with.

You say you don't endorse DRM, yet you are willing to accept it in HTML5. You're willing to cave to the pressure from these content cartels to try to set up that alternate fantasy universe that simply does not work, and is doomed to failure. In my view, that means you are endorsing DRM. Consider the content protection in the HDMI standard, HDCP. It's worse than useless. All it does is complicate the standard, which lowers the reliability and drives up costs and energy usage, and it completely fails to stop piracy. We all pay for that every minute we watch video over an encrypted HDMI link. It's very low cost, fractions of a cent of electricity, but it isn't necessary and it adds up. HDCP demonstrated, again, that DRM does not work. The Content Scrambling System of DVDs was an earlier abysmal failure, easily broken by a 16 year old kid. We didn't need to waste the effort. Competent cryptology researchers tried to tell them it wouldn't work, but they didn't listen. And now you're willing to let them have another chance, this time at HTML5? They didn't deserve the first chance. They sure don't deserve more chances.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

If we want to get rid of DRM I think more and more we have to abandon a free-market capitalist view of artistry. Which I'm willing to entertain, but I do kind of think it works for art. Healthcare is one where I think it's evidently broken -- I know there's a kazillion people on here who disagree with that vehemently.

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

Might be easier to make your own design than bother trying to copy another. By comparison, the effort required to share information is trivial.

The funny part is YOU WOULD have to make your own design, why? well because you are infringing on patents if you copy an existing design.

A lot of them aren't even considered artists because the don't have a f**ked up life. A lot of the "great" artists no matter how worthless the art is in my eyes/ears, are considered geniuses because they have a fu**ed life. Or they make themselves f**ked up to appear they have some shattered life that has caused them to be great.

So that poor artist trying to get noticed remains unnoticed, because they do not fit the "stereo type" from these yuppies that set the standard.

DRM has two sides and everyone argues over the bad vs good. I think as it gains more traction you see how forcing it down everyone's throats will destroy innovation, and imagination, interaction, with other artists, and with the artists fan base, or how companies will quickly self destruct when they alienate people.

Re: Still need to install something

[peppepz]

They shouldn't work with a full DRM stack including video drivers. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa376846(v=vs.85).aspx

Re: Still need to install something

[jabuzz]

Except HDCP is thoroughly broken, so all I need is a HDCP capture device and I can get access to that way.

Re:Still need to install something

[devent]

Because the whole point of the W3C is to make the web more accessible by forging out standards.
Like you don't need to install a Jpeg or Png* plugin for Firefox.

By adopting a standard that relies on vendor specific Content Decryption Modules (CDMs) the EME "standard" is not better then a Flash pugin. It does not improve the open web. It actually integrated the status quo in the web and gets the blessing of the W3C. The status quo in this case is that you need to have a binary proprietary patent infected plugin in order to enjoy "premium" content.

*Png http://www.w3.org/Graphics/PNG/
*Jpeg http://www.w3.org/Graphics/JPEG/

Re:Still need to install something

[devent]

No. The whole point of the EME proposed standard is to standardize access to the Content Decryption Modules (CDMs). You can think of the CDMs as a Flash or Silverlight plugin.

If anything, with EME the CDMs will be buried in your system even deeper. For example, Netflix will offer the CDM as a system component, like a driver. Via EME Firefox, Chrome, Safari, et al. can then access the CDM to decrypt and show the "premium" content.

So if you are opposing DRM or proprietary software on your computer, then EME will make it worse not better.

Re:Still need to install something

[TemporalBeing]

Remind me again whose content makes up 90% of the netflix catalogue (aka the stuff netflix customers care about)?

Oh ok.

As you pointed out yourself, the difference between your original statement and my correction is there. It may not be large, but there is a delta. Many independent film makers don't care about the DRM stuff, and they're a growing group. Netflix probably doesn't care much for the DRM stuff either for what they produce - also growing, and very good quality.

Re:Still need to install something

[lhunath]

What exactly is your point? Because most of the users are apathetic to DRM, it needs to stay?

If you can sufficiently obfuscate a jail around your life such that you don't notice it in your daily doings, it belongs there? Of course not.

DRM solves no problems, but it CREATES a LOT of them. Here's something that solves problems: Get rid of it.

Re:Still need to install something

[Dahamma]

But that's completely irrelevant to your point, since, like with the Flash plugin, Firefox would not be shipping any proprietary code.

No one said it was "better" than Flash or not proprietary in itself, just that it would not need to ship with Firefox. You asked a question, and were given the correct answer...

Re:Still need to install something

[devent]

No one said it was "better"? The W3C said so, that EME will eliminate proprietary plugins like Flash and Silverlight.
The proponents of EME are all that the EME is somehow necessary despite the fact that Flash and Silverlight are dying out.

Re:Still need to install something

[Dahamma]

Wha? My comment was a simple answer to your simple question:

Q: "Please tell me how Firefox will ship a patent laden and proprietary DRM plugins?"
A: "Why does it need to ship with them? Firefox doesn't ship with Flash, but it can be installed as a plugin."

You seem to want to get into a philosophical argument about the W3C and EME, while I was just stating a fact that answered your question. I'm sure there are plenty of other threads on this post with people who would love to debate it, though :)

Re:Still need to install something

[Anonymous Coward]

No one said it was "better" than Flash

If it's not better than Flash then why does it exist?

Not really HTML5

[h4rr4r]

If I still have to have an approved OS and browser and install a DRM plugin, it's not really just HTML5.

Oh wow, we swapped one plugin for another.

Re:Not really HTML5

[MBGMorden]

In my minds of the corporate overlords these days, what's good for the goose is good for the goose and the gander can take it or leave it.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

And I guess if you're on an old WinXP box for your TV(which you don't really need a high end computer for a media box), then WinXP is no longer an approved OS, since it will never support IE 11. Given the pattern of previous releases, there's a good chance Windows Vista or 7 won't be supported either. I hope Netflix, for their own sake, plans a fall back for the foreseeable future. Silverlight has several years left until end of life anyways.

Re:Not really HTML5

[wvmarle]

No-one managed to build an un-approved plugin yet?

Re:Not really HTML5

[ciderbrew]

In the UK, the content was so abysmal that "leave it" is what I did. Even if it was DRM free and FREE to use, I still wouldn't have a need to use them. It was like being in a video shop in the late 80s.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Microlith]

Actually that would still be HTML5. That's why adding ECE to HTML5 is stupid: it solves none of the problems of Flash plugins while opening the door for a multitude of similar DRM plugins, each with its own, unique attack surface.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Vanderhoth]

Canada's the same way. I use a proxy server setting on my smart TV to get the American netflix. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with it.

Re:Not really HTML5

[girlintraining]

In my minds of the corporate overlords these days, what's good for the goose is good for the goose and the gander can take it or leave it.

She just filed for divorce on the grounds of not having her physical needs satisfied. Apparently he just sat on the couch all day and crowed about his profits, and grew fat and bloated until he couldn't fly, while she worked tirelessly doing volunteer work and helping poor children get access to music and movies that he had removed from the library and put in a video and record store across the street, then campaigned with local politicians to shut down the library because it was hurting his bottom line by taxing him to steal his hard-earned work.

Re:Not really HTML5

[gl4ss]

In the UK, the content was so abysmal that "leave it" is what I did. Even if it was DRM free and FREE to use, I still wouldn't have a need to use them. It was like being in a video shop in the late 80s.

it seems it's pretty abysmal in most regions outside of US. mostly because all the good stuff apart from netflix exclusives is already peddled with region exclusive deals to tv companies.

so the end result is that for example mythbusters has seasons 1-3 in finland. and I can have "great" documentaries like supersize me. yeeeehaaaa!

Re:Not really HTML5

[TWiTfan]

And what, pray tell, do you propose as an alternative? Should they abandon DRM to stick it to the man--immediately losing 99% of all their content? Yeah, now all that's on Netflix streaming are a handful of no-name indies, but they're all DRM free! We win!!!

Re:Not really HTML5

[Sloppy]

In the UK, the content was so abysmal that "leave it" is what I did.

90% of everything is shit, and the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

I'm sure 90% of your TV is shit, but so is ours. What you're doing is concentrating on our 10% and your 100%. Over here on the other side of the pond, I do the same thing but from opposite perspective: "Damn, so there's much great stuff we're watching from the BBC."

Re:Not really HTML5

[h4rr4r]

Flash seems to work fine for everyone else.

Since they mail out easy to copy disks I would think no DRM is not much loss.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand. I can download virtually any movie I want right now very easily, yet these retarded companies care whether or not Netflix has DRM? There is no logic in that. Clearly they just enjoy crippling their own products.

Re:Not really HTML5

[liamevo]

Not really, he's talking about the content on offer on the UK netflix, not just UK content in general.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Charliemopps]

It's still not worth it. I live in America, got Netflix for free for 1 month... the content was such crap and so out of date it was laughable. The quality was terrible because it couldn't stream it live and the bandwidth I had at the time and there was no option to queue up a movie to watch later so all I could really do was pick from some crappy movies I'd already seen last year and see them in bellow 480 resolution. I think we watched half a movie before we just dumped the crap and went back to the piratebay.

Get a clue hollywood. I'm WILLING to pay. I'm begging for a way to do it... you just refuse to let me. Netflix's DRM, in no way stops me from getting your content. In fact, I had that content years ago. Getting it off of netflix would be a chore. You don't even need the stupid DRM. All of your movies are already available at thousands of site all over the web. Get over it. Oh well, you aren't going to listen and are just going to go bankrupt. Just remember: This is your own fault.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

It was like being in a video shop in the late 80s.

That's actually the reason I still subscribe. I watch a few documentaries here and there that aren't broadcast but a good 75% of my viewing is old TV shows that just aren't as popular in the US. Stuff that use to be on Nick at Night that has been passed over for newer old shows like Cosby.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

One doesn't abandon DRM to stick it to the man. They abandon it because it doesn't work. It punishes the paying end user, and at best marginally delays the non-paying end user. In return it costs a great deal and merely acts as a rubber stamp saying that you did your best to protect "premium content".

And yes, despite whatever nonsense NetFlix may bandy about in its quest to claim that DRM does work, it really doesn't. I can understand them wanting to pretend it us for the reason you cited, but it's a huge money hole that could be used to improve services and the shoddy content they are so proud to say they are protecting.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Sparticus789]

Sounds like a problem with your internet connection and not a problem with Netflix. I stream in 720i regularly without any problems.

Re:Not really HTML5

[ciderbrew]

For old UK content channel4 is good. Their ad server was a pile of buggy crap the last time I used it. but I hope they've fixed that. I'm not too sure about regional blocks. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4od

Re:Not really HTML5

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

What is even more hilarious (and sad at the same time) is there is more Canadian content on the US netflix then on the Canadian one. You can get current episodes of Coonnttinnuum (the show is set in Vancouver, with all its duplicated letters in the title) and MacGyver, while US produced, was filmed in Vancouver with a largely Canadian cast.

Re:Not really HTML5

[RaceProUK]

Looks like 7 will be supported... eventually

Re:Not really HTML5

[ciderbrew]

Apart from Sky at night and other things on iplayer/factual i've given up with the BBC. Just about all TV content really. Films are no better. I could torrent any film I want. Can I think of anything I want to watch? No. Nothing at all. When I get an Oculus VR I think that's it for passive content for me.

Re:Not really HTML5

[citizenr]

Its NOT a plugin citizen, we call them Extensions!

Re:Not really HTML5

[Gr8Apes]

I have 18 Mbps down with low-latency, I used to have Netflix - the content stream in general was terrible, as far as quality of the picture went. Many compression artifacts, some streaming packet drops leading to hiccups in the picture, etc. If your TV is bigger than 40", then Netflix quality is abysmal, the bigger it is the more obvious all the problems. Sound comes through usually fine. I also have Hulu Plus currently, I'll be giving it another try soon.

The biggest piece of humor here is that I have absolutely 0 issues capturing any video stream, no matter the DRM, even off a tablet. Neither does anyone else. If you can accept the terrible quality of streaming video, then a camcorder version wouldn't upset you at all either. This is why BD sales are increasing, but not stellar. As bigger TVs become standard, the picture quality becomes far more important. And having ripped BDs on your media server is the only way to enjoy them, even for a single viewing - skip all the commercial intro nonsense. Just the movie please.

Re:Not really HTML5

[prelelat]

No they haven't dropped silverlight yet, and I suspect that they will not until firefox and chrome all use html5 otherwise that would be silly. Then you could install FF or Chrome on your xp machine to which I have to ask. Why are you still using windows XP as your main media machine? I can understand in, industry why you would maybe have XP for older custom built applications but for a home machine watching netflix? XP is quickly becoming outdated for other reasons it hits EOL in less than a year. Then you have other problems like security vulnerabilities. You have much more to worry about than netflix which as I said, isn't a problem.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Sparticus789]

If that is the case, I have never noticed it because I stream Netflix to a 37" TV. While I notice some hiccups at the very beginning of a show/movie, the picture errors clear themselves up after about 30 seconds of play time. I have noticed older shows (Currently re-watching Star Trek TNG) always have worse quality, but only because the original was not recorded in 1080p. Not through any technical fault of Netflix.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Vanderhoth]

I agree with you for the most part.

If I can't find something on Netflix TPB or ExtraTorrent is my next stop. I like Netflix because I like watching movies I haven't seen in a long time and they have a pretty good anime selection, way better than my local video store (now closed) ever had and I don't have to spend days snooping the interwebs to find episodes. Also there's good content there for my two year old to watch. For eight bucks a month it's worth the effort it'd take me to find and download stuff for her and saves physical space in my house for crap movies/shows she'd only watch once and never look at again.

If they had newer movies and shows there, I'd be willing to pay more. Espically if I could get rid of my cable. If I could get rid of the cable I'd save nearly $100/month, but my wife is addicted to having crap playing in the background even when she's reading a book and not watching it. I just got Sickbeard setup a couple of weeks ago to auto download shows we watch and I'm starting to wean my wife off of channel surfing, but she still insists we can't get rid of the cable.

Part of the reason for getting Sickbeard is we live on the East coast (Atlantic time) and a lot of shows we want to watch don't end until almost midnight for us, we have a two year old and are up early every day so staying up late is less and less of an option. The cable company wants to charge us ANOTHER $15/month for one PVR or $25/month for two so we could have one for the bedroom and another for the living room, all on top of the $150/month for internet and cable we already pay. With Sickbeard I have it downloading to a 3TB ($250) external drive on a laptop in our bedroom closet that's hocked to our bedroom TV (HDMI cable through the wall). Then I use Plex to stream content to our downstairs Smart TV, it's a pretty awesome setup and I'm considering ripping, or just downloading, all the movies we own and sticking the DVD's in a box in the attic to save space in our living room. But it's a shame I have to expend all the energy to setup that system when I'd be perfectly willing to pay a reasonable price for a similar service.

I don't like cable, I don't like sitting through 20 minutes of useless commercials for every hour of TV I watch and have movies and shows interrupted, I don't like having to pay for tons of crap I don't want and pay extra to get the two or three channels I do want, then be nickled and dimed for equipment that's inconvenient to use and I have to give back if I cancel my service anyway, $300/year for two PVRs on top of the $1,650/year for basic cable and internet is stupid.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Merk42]

In April, XP won't be supported by Microsoft after a 13 year run. I really wouldn't blame Netflix for not supporting it.

Re:Not really HTML5

[future assassin]

If you're already accusing me of stealing I might as well steal your precious ccontent.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Vanderhoth]

I watched continuum for a while. It was a pretty good show, but to SciFi for my wife and it wasn't on until almost 11:00PM for us here on the East coast so it was kind of late. I should add it to sickbeard for downloading now that I have that setup.

Re:Not really HTML5

[prelelat]

Yep pretty much but that's what you're stuck with, with HTML5 not having a good drm scheme in it. You're going to find a bunch of different DRM plugins for browsers. More attack vectors and so on.

I can see both sides to it though, DRM is a piece of shit so why include something comprable in HTML5 people will just find a way to circumvent it if they wish anyways.

On the other hand the content provider(here netflix) has to give content creators assurances that their content won't just be stolen and distributed. This puts them in a tough spot. Do you risk losing all of your content to support a DRM free system, or do you put in DRM and say the majority of people will still use it. You pick the DRM because you still have content to stream. So I understand that.

Now your stuck having to implement DRM to satisfy your content providers. How do you do that, well you use silverlight it has DRM protection built in, but now it's 2013 and you're the only people using it and it's going to depreciate in the near future. Do you drop DRM and pray that not everyone runs over to Amazon, Hulu or youtube? Nope you pop in a plugin and call it a day.

Is different? I hope so. Silverlight had the problem of being a Microsoft plugin so it never EVER showed up on linux. I'm a linux guy so that hurt, a lot. With an HTML5 plugin for firefox and chrome my hope is that it will work cross platform(see no reason why they wouldn't have it) and I can have netflix on my linux machine and my OpenELEC machine.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you download it for completely free because you're an entitled baby.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Rockoon]

Flash seems to work fine for everyone else.

Does it?

Netflix streams HD movies to my PC, but uses Silverlight.
Amazon Prime only streams SD movies to my PC with HD being restricted to "approved devices", but uses Flash.

So quite frankly, Flash is not working for everyone else. Take your blinders off.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Merk42]

And what do you propose then? No DRM at all? Just tag and that's it? Even if Netflix was all gung ho about it, no content producer would be. Without content Netflix is useless.

Re: Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue may be your ISP. I was reading about the peering agreement between Verizon and the Netflix bandwidth provider (can't remember the name). Basically, when Netflix bandwidth exceeds what Verizon is willing to support, they don't open up any more ports between the networks. They just leave it to be congested and make it look like Netflix is crap. Wish I could find the article, just from last week.

Re:Not really HTML5

[LordLimecat]

Gee, I wonder if we could solve that by baking DRM capability into HTML5, thus allowing other OSes to natively access the content!

No wait that steals our freedom. Like the freedom to have to use IE11 and a "premium extension". Gosh I love backwards logic: Freedom that leaves me more restricted than before!

Re:Not really HTML5

[Bengie]

Some older videos are worse than the newer ones just because of the original quality but what can you expect for a 3Mb-4Mb (max) stream?. As for hick-ups in Netflix.. What? It buffers out over a minute.

I heard Netflix Super HD is really nice and is 8Mb. I contacted my ISP and awaiting a response.

Re:Not really HTML5

[h4rr4r]

Amazon prime does HD. I watched "Good Eats" in HD on my computer yesterday. Netflix does not work at all on that computer.

Re:Not really HTML5

[h4rr4r]

We can't bake DRM into HTML5.

If you put DRM in an open source browser how would you stop anyone from simply making the changes to nueter the DRM?

Your stupid idea simply cannot work.

Re:Not really HTML5

[LordLimecat]

Whether you understand it or not is irrelevant. The fact is, no video tag will take off unless it supports DRM. Thats reality, and you can either continue not understanding it or you can accept it and deal with practicalities like standardizing a DRM system.

Re:Not really HTML5

[h4rr4r]

HTML5 can't have DRM in it. It would never work.

What would stop people from modifying open source browsers to simply write the video out to a file?

You can't have netflix on linux, if you could you very well can't have DRM. With firefox + linux there would be nothing stopping you from simply recording the video or hell writing it directly to a file.

Re:Not really HTML5

[h4rr4r]

The reality is you can't have a standardized DRM scheme if you want to keep FOSS alive. They are incompatible. Any FOSS browser that supported this DRM could trivially be made to output to a file, unless it just passed the data to the OS. Which just means now you can't have FOSS OSes anymore.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Sloppy]

Whoops, my bad.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Karzz1]

.... $300/year for two PVRs on top of the $1,650/year for basic cable and internet is stupid.

You, sir, are unpatriotic. Please report to your local thought police station immediately for retraining.

Re:Not really HTML5

[h4rr4r]

Take a deep breath, I did not think about that difference.

Believe it or not, I had assumed TV and movies had the same rules applied. I am now confused as to why they do not.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Daemonik]

You do know that video is not encoded in HTML5 right? That HTML5 is a markup language and the decoding is being done by the browser instead of a plugin? The HTML5 is just telling the browser "Hey here's some video, figure it out"? I swear the way people toss around HTML5 as a magic generic term is worse than "the cloud".

Re:Not really HTML5

[h4rr4r]

Obviously.
The point is without something not normally found in a web browser this does not work.

HTML should never have tags for things like this. Even acknowledging their existence is moving in the wrong direction.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Karzz1]

Why are you still using windows XP as your main media machine?

Because it works fine as-is.
Because it is running on hardware without Vista/7 drivers.
Because, as you so kindly pointed out, XP is not quite EOL yet.

Note; I am not the original poster. I am just answering the question. My main media box is ArchLinux and I do just fine without NetFlix at all.

Re:Not really HTML5

[jbmartin6]

I get great quality on a 55" screen from Netflix. Perhaps the ISP or the player make a difference in this regard. I'm using a Roku 3.

Re:Not really HTML5

[tepples]

Let me take a guess as to why Amazon allows high-definition streams of television shows but not movies to be played on a PC. Movie publishers insist on HDCP for high-definition outputs. OTA TV, on the other hand, is required to be broadcast in the clear, and even some cable channels aren't strict about requiring DTCP.

Re:Not really HTML5

[ciderbrew]

I'm happy to pay a subscription for a service that has the all the content which you already have on TPB. The infrastructure part is done. The bandwidth issue is what p2p solves.
The choice now it make it easy and a few pennies or i'm out. for a film that old film. I have youtube; youporn; youwhatever and games that are better than all of the content they put out.
If they are that worried about their content being stolen I'd rather the don't make it. It adds nothing. It just a distraction from the things I should really be doing. :)

Re:Not really HTML5

[Vanderhoth]

I certainly need to go back to high school it should have been:

$300/year for two PVRs on top of the $1,800/year for basic cable and internet is stupid.

Math fail.

I just looked into it and it would cost me $720/year for just internet to download what I want to watch and watch it when I want. Opposed to $2,100/year for crap TV channels I don't care about and internet so I can download what I want to watch and watch it when I want.

Now that I've put it in perspective for myself, screw my wife, cables gone when I get home.

Re:Not really HTML5

[NFN_NLN]

If I still have to have an approved OS and browser and install a DRM plugin, it's not really just HTML5.

Oh wow, we swapped one plugin for another.

An IE specific plugin for video... wait a second.. ActiveDivX?... anyone.. anyone..

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

The HTML5 video tag already has taken off, in case you haven't noticed. It solves a different problem to DRM. There is no need to pretend that DRM is required for everything (or anything, for that matter).

Re:Not really HTML5

[gfxguy]

Agree... not a huge fan of netflix, but despite occasional problems ("buffering" messages and artifacts), 99% of the time it's a good quality image on our 42 inch TV (played from a PS3). We also watch on tablets and smaller TVs with few problems.

The problem with netflix is indeed the content, not the streaming, IMO. It's worth the monthly charge only because there's four of us who can use it on our tablets, and they do get decent new stuff occasionally... Just saw Para-Norman and it was quite good.

Re:Not really HTML5

[prelelat]

Fair enough.

My point was more to the fact that by the time netflix drops silverlight XP will most likely be past it's EOL. At that point I don't think people should expect it to be supported. My previous post came across as more harsh than I was expecting now that I reread it with fresh eyes. Sorry if I offended you or the original poster.

Re:Not really HTML5

[AmiMoJo]

The plan was to have the DRM in the browser natively and then somehow verify the browser itself has not been modified in any way. Only approved browsers will be allowed to stream. I imagine this will involve some kind of cryptographic hashing, but quite how it will be verified I don't know.

If you read the BBC's comments on HTML DRM that was how they wanted it implemented.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Karzz1]

No offense taken :)

And yes, you are probably correct in that XP will be EOL before NetFlix HTML5 comes completely to fruition. I guess that is why I like Linux ( especially rolling distributions like Arch and Gentoo where there aren't even versions per se ). I really don't like forced obsolescence. If the hardware is still running ok and performing satisfactorily, I see no reason to upgrade.

Re:Not really HTML5

[prelelat]

In my opinion DRM will never work period let me put that out there to start.

Now, I'm not sure why you think these other issues you presented are any less of an issue on any other platform. You could rewrite firefox now for windows and do the same thing your describing.

DRM could very well eventually make it into HTML5 (http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/Digest/The-Electronic-Frontier-Foundation-Objects-to-WC-HTML-Standards-90321.asp) it's been discussed to no end all over the place. It's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. On one end you'll have people clamoring for it and if it's not there making plugins possibly multiple ones with no standardization. including it in HTML5 would at least standardize it somewhat and allow one product to be patched for security holes. The other token is, is it HTML5's job to do that standardization and include it? Probably not but if they don't you could end up with a mess of plugins like netflix has. If they do include DRM you will more likely see it implemented in firefox and chrome and have it work on linux. If netflix adopts that standard for DRM then you could very well see netflix on linux.

I don't see how having netflix on an opensource browser on an opensource OS is different than having it in an opensource browser on a closed system. The OS is most likely not going to be your limiting factor in attacking the DRM in HTML5 because it's going to be written to be able to be used on things from windows, OSX, iOS, android, chromeOS and so forth Linux isn't out of the question.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what They keep telling us, but in the end they want our money more than we want their content.

The movie industry will yield just as the music industry did, because the most important advantage they can offer over piracy is quality and convenience, and DRM runs exactly counter to that. Bastardizing the very concept of personal computing just to "protect" a video stream that has already left the barn a thousand times over is ridiculous. It's madness. They may as well require distributors to pour blood on their heads and sacrifice a virgin for all the good it will do. But by God, they're the content industry, they're at war with their own thieving customers, and they will not go down without a fight.

Let's not indulge them.

Content producers like Disney make massive money on their stuff, piracy or not, and they won't stop producing content just because they can't abuse paying customers for their own sadistic pleasure - but they will take any inch you give them.

Re:Not really HTML5

[h4rr4r]

The closed system, like windows, can provide a trusted content path. This means the media will only be output to HDCP supporting devices and that no unsigned drivers are loaded at the time content is being played. Since a driver could pretend to be a video device and record the output.
It will also prevent screen grabs from being used.

On an open system you cannot have such a thing, since no one would use it. If I can play it on linux, I can record it. This means the DRM is only going to restrict me to recording in real time worst case.

Re:Not really HTML5

[bobstreo]

HTML5 can't have DRM in it. It would never work.

What would stop people from modifying open source browsers to simply write the video out to a file?

You can't have netflix on linux, if you could you very well can't have DRM. With firefox + linux there would be nothing stopping you from simply recording the video or hell writing it directly to a file.

Umm isn't android linux ?

Netflix seems to run fine on my tablets and googletv...

Re:Not really HTML5

[JesseMcDonald]

including it in HTML5 would at least standardize it somewhat and allow one product to be patched for security holes.

Except that isn't how it works. The part which has been proposed for inclusion in HTML5 isn't any particular DRM scheme, but rather a generic API for linking various unspecified DRM schemes with the audio and video tags via Javascript. The implementation is either a non-standard DRM extension built into the web browser or a non-standard DRM plugin. Either way, different web sides can require different DRM schemes, which probably won't be portable to different web browsers, not to mention different platforms. Each implementation will have its own unique security issues, just as plugins do now.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Darinbob]

I thought the whole purpose of HTML5 was to enable plugins while still being called a standard.

Re:Not really HTML5

[CODiNE]

We did more than that, we legitimized DRM!

C:\> EDIT INTERNET
 
General failure reading INTERNET
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish?_

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Was it the part where he said "The quality was terrible because ... the bandwidth I had at the time" that tipped you off that it was a problem with his internet connection and not a problem with Netflix? I can't pinpoint it exactly, but that's probably where I caught on.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Microlith]

I have noticed older shows (Currently re-watching Star Trek TNG) always have worse quality, but only because the original was not recorded in 1080p. Not through any technical fault of Netflix.

Actually, it was recorded on anamorphic 35mm film stock. They're reusing that film to produce the Blu-rays. What you're watching right now is probably the old DVD sources. I suspect that CBS won't be supplying the Blu-ray sources to anyone until well after disc sales have tapered off.

Re:Not really HTML5

[LordLimecat]

This has been discussed before. The idea is to provide extensions to allow DRM to be implemented without plugins. See:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/05/drm-in-html5-is-a-victory-for-the-open-web-not-a-defeat/
http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-encrypted-media-20130510/

Re:Not really HTML5

[Sparticus789]

with a largely Canadian cast.

I thought Continuum was just using the cast of Stargate.

Re:Not really HTML5

[molesdad]

You do know that he Goose is the girl and the Gander the bloke in scary feathered aquatic fowl speak .. just sayin.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Bert64]

And many of us have such problems... Being able to download in the quality you desire and watch later is extremely useful, and is a feature which thepiratebay provides and netflix doesnt.

Connections with daytime bandwidth caps.
Connections which are slow due to physical location (eg long line lengths etc).
Connections which are slow at peak times (ie when you want to actually watch tv) usually due to congestion.
People who are without connectivity, or with poor connectivity at certain times, and are usually bored during these times and might want to watch something (eg travellers)
Travellers are also screwed by the regional racism employed by these various streaming services.

Thepiratebay lets me watch what i want, when i want, on whatever device i want. I would quite happily pay for such a service, but i won't pay for an inferior service nor will i give my money to someone who is trying to force an inferior service down my throat.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Sparticus789]

That's not the point. The OP I replied to was blaming Netflix for his lack of internet bandwidth. Netflix is not your ISP. It would be like blaming E-Bay because it took too long to reload the webpage to snag that last-minute winning bid. It's your ISP's fault.

Re:Not really HTML5

[0123456]

And what do you propose then? No DRM at all? Just <video> tag and that's it?

Sounds good to me. It's not like you can't download all the same videos from pirate sites despite the DRM.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Microlith]

The plan was to have the DRM in the browser natively and then somehow verify the browser itself has not been modified in any way.

Was it? Certainly, it isn't part of the spec. Not that it matters, because it would simply have made being HTML5 compliant impossible for all but closed source black boxes which is basically spitting in the face of everything that got the Internet to where it is now.

If you read the BBC's comments on HTML DRM that was how they wanted it implemented.

The BBC also expressed a desire for laws similar to the DMCA be available so they could legally attack anyone who bypassed it. I lost a lot of respesct for the BBC the day I read that.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Gr8Apes]

it's not the player, I had Netflix until they started charging - it wasn't worth it. Hulu still has issues, but had better quality and that had not dropped. It still, at high use times, has additional artifacts not visible during low use times. I'm on fiber - I don't think it's the ISP, unless it's the peering issue.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

flash is not fine.

Re:Not really HTML5

[bill_mcgonigle]

Good Eats is not a movie, its television series.

Try to match a movie on Prime in HD on your PC. You already know that you cannot

So you know that there's a policy difference between TV and Movies on Prime, but you're trying to blame the playback software implementation? Do you have any evidence that this is based on a licensing deal that hinged on the player?

so why are you being a dishonest fuck right now?

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Its NOT a plugin citizen, we call them Extensions!

NO, we call them Add-ons!

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Try reading my comment again and again until you understand my point.

Re:Not really HTML5

[quacking duck]

When I was reading that I thought the $100/mo included some premium channels (and excluded internet), but you say that's for *basic* cable? Plus rental for a couple non-PVR cable box should still only be $10.

What company are you with? I thought Canadian TV companies ripped off its customers, but when I axed cable TV the $100/mo I saved (including taxes, month-to-month) was for digital HD + specialty + $25/mo HD PVR. Now I have Netflix and an antenna that gets 6 over-the-air stations, most in HD--is OTA not an option where you are (or with your wife?)

Re:Not really HTML5

[Merk42]

Good job ignoring the second, more important, part. "... no content producer would be {for that}. Without content Netflix is useless."

Re:Not really HTML5

[Vanderhoth]

Eastlink, Right now we have the Talk, surf and watch bundle for $145/mo + tax, (15%) in Nova Scotia. If I just get the internet it'd be about $50/mo + tax Alient's prices are much better.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

screw my wife

Done.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

So a big fuck you for using an open source browser. Gee thanks MS for sticking your dick up my ass again.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Rockoon]

So you know that there's a policy difference between TV and Movies on Prime, but you're trying to blame the playback software implementation? Do you have any evidence that this is based on a licensing deal that hinged on the player?

No such policy difference exists on Netflix, that uses Silverlight's stronger DRM.

So yes, I have evidence.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, lucky you that is not the case. Since you're a fucking troll and didn't read the article, you won't need it on Windows. Please go suck a dick elsewhere.

Re:Not really HTML5

[amiga3D]

I'm loving my Direct TV. It's too much money but it is vastly cheaper than cable and I can't believe how much better the quality is. More programming, better quality, less money. Win Win Win.

Re:Not really HTML5

[exomondo]

You can't have netflix on linux

False.

Re:Not really HTML5

[exomondo]

An IE specific plugin for video... wait a second.. ActiveDivX?... anyone.. anyone..

Well if you're using IE then obviously yes, if you were using say Chrome you would use the Chrome plugin they make mention of.

Re:Not really HTML5

[TranquilVoid]

The DRM will be a closed-source plugin whose API conforms to the HTML5 standard for DRM plugins. I'm unclear on whether the plugin outputs to the video and audio devices itself, or if it passes the streams to the browser. If the latter then you are correct.

A standards body is an arbitrator for different groups, not an authoratative leader, so as much as I may not like it they are going to have to accomodate the DRM wishes of the major content producers. Even if open source browsers could not implement the standard I don't think it will damage them substantially - we already have the situation where you can expect not to access certain content in certain browsers and under certain operating systems.

Re:Not really HTML5

[TranquilVoid]

The article uses "plugin" to refer to the current system of DRM and "module" to refer to the proposed HTML5 system. There is little difference in that both are closed-source addons designed to keep the video data inaccessible from the browser code (which is the answer to h4rr4r's question).

If your entire OS and drivers are open source, that's not going to work and it's unlikely these DRM modules will be provided for your platform.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Vanderhoth]

That was suppose to be "Alient's prices aren't much better."

Re:Not really HTML5

[bill_mcgonigle]

No such policy difference exists on Netflix, that uses Silverlight's stronger DRM.

So yes, I have evidence.

No, you have two pieces of data that are correlated and are assuming causation. Prime Video is free for members. Netflix is $9/mo. HD content is more expensive than SD content.

But I'm not privy to Amazon's internal discussions or contracts, so I don't know if the lower cost is why they have SD.

Re:Not really HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

or you can accept it and deal with mathematical impossibilities like standardizing a DRM system.

FTFY

Re:Not really HTML5

[Bert64]

It is the point, his current connection may be all that's available in the area where he lives and thus netflix does not offer a usable service where he is while thepiratebay does offer a usable service.

how about efficient streams?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about something other than TCP that hogs up precious BW?

Re:how about efficient streams?

[Vanderhoth]

I'd be interested in hearing what other protocols would work?

The only ones I know of for network traffic are TCP and UDP. TCP guarantees in-order delivery of packets which think would be important for things like video, but I suppose that would cause lag if there were a lot of dropped packets.

Disclaimer, I do very little network stuff and only had exposure to Networking 1 and 2 during University ten years ago and setting up the occasional WiFi. So I'm probably out of date and this is a serious question not a troll.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[KingMotley]

TCP hogs up precious BW? Since when? Only in environments where packet loss is substantial is there any real issue, but then again, UDP would likely be much worse. Throw in some of the better optional parts like selective ACK, and TCP is pretty efficient.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[Bengie]

TCP is quite good about not hogging, just make sure you don't have insane buffer bloat causing the protocol to not realize that there is congestion. Otherwise TCP is quite good at backing off.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[evilviper]

TCP guarantees in-order delivery of packets which think would be important for things like video

Not really any more of a "guarantee", it's just another layer of verification, at a lower layer, which adds unnecessary additional overhead, slow start, poor behavior (for streaming) when there is occasional packet loss or congestion, etc.

And reliable delivery is certainly NOT needed for streaming video and audio. Such codecs were designed to be able to handle some data loss. That's why most streaming protocols (RTP, RTSP) are UDP-based. You'll see video glitches if there's packet loss, but everything will keep working just fine.

Contrast that with transferring zip files, PDFs, word documents, etc., where a single bit being missing or wrong will render it completely useless.

Networking 101.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[TemporalBeing]

I'd be interested in hearing what other protocols would work?
The only ones I know of for network traffic are TCP and UDP. TCP guarantees in-order delivery of packets which think would be important for things like video, but I suppose that would cause lag if there were a lot of dropped packets.

TCP is not used for Video or Audio streaming as you do not want to have a lost packet cause a fault in the stream. You use UDP and build your own protocol on top of that to handle the ordering and loss of packets (which you will have).

The official protocol to use (per standards) is UDP MultiCast; however, that requires the routers throughout the Internet to support Multicasting which is generally disabled - thus you can't use it except on dedicated and unmanaged networks. Multicast is primarily targetted at having one source and many receivers, with best path algorithms built-in. Not sure if it solves the packet loss and ordering issues too, possibly. But the ISPs and their Backbone Providers are the main reason we can't actually use it.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[TemporalBeing]

TCP hogs up precious BW? Since when? Only in environments where packet loss is substantial is there any real issue, but then again, UDP would likely be much worse. Throw in some of the better optional parts like selective ACK, and TCP is pretty efficient.

TCP works pretty well in environments with high packet loss. Just as good as UDP does. There is a point of no return there though.

Now, I do agree, TCP doesn't hog bandwidth. In fact, it limits an applications ability to flood the network. Each TCP stream can typically use at most 33.33% of the network. You can get around that by using multiple TCP streams, which also happens to be the best way to handle high packet loss environments (such as SatComm).

And yes, I've worked in those environments.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[AlphaWolf_HK]

The main difference between TCP and UDP can be described thus:

- TCP is guaranteed data integrity and in-order data payload delivery at the transport layer, along with congestion control to make sure packets aren't being sent too fast for the receiving end to process (either because the device is too slow to process it, or because the pipe is saturated.)

- UDP is just spit the data across the pipe without actually checking anything. UDP offers lower packet overhead and lower latency (no need to wait for ACK's and dropped packets don't need to be retransmitted) and is more forgiving during congestion. Internet Protocol does the same, by the way - UDP and TCP get encapsulated into the Internet Protocol packet.

For live streaming, usually UDP is preferred, and the error correction is handled at either layer 6 or 7. Generally the application will use parity whereby so long as you get an arbitrary number (say 95% of the data) you'll see the whole thing uninterrupted, even if some packets arrive out of order, though in some applications this isn't even needed.

UDP is almost universally used for VoIP and video conferencing. Games used to only use UDP for this reason back in the dialup days, though many newer ones (e.g. world of warcraft I know of) uses TCP, and it does come at the expense of added latency. I don't know what netflix uses, but since it isn't "live" per se and it does buffer, I imagine it would be easier to program it in TCP.

BitTorrent now uses a really neat variation of UDP that they call uTP. Although it *is* UDP, they added some TCP functions without most of its drawbacks. TCP only makes congestion control corrections *after* the link is already congested, whereas uTP is less aggressive and monitors the link to scale itself so that it doesn't cause latency spikes on your link.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[Vanderhoth]

Thanks, it's all coming back to me now I remember the application network layers. I'll have to look into this uTP protocol, first time I've heard of it. Back when I was in networking we were told UDP and TCP. UDP if order doesn't matter and you can add any TCP requirements yourself if they're necessary, I'm guessing that's pretty much what uTP is.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[Anonymous Coward]

UDP packet is ~20 bytes tcp packet is ~30 bytes. Or about 10 bytes for every packet extra on top of every one sent. Or about 2% for tcp %1.5% for UDP.

TCP is 'decently' efficient. Is it perfect? Hardly.

UDP is good for 'fire and forget and dont care if you get it'
TCP is good for 'send and I want a pretty good effort for it to get there'

good effort costs bytes and in some cases time

With many UDP situations you will see 'home grown' acks or none at all. That is where many UDP solutions will beat TCP for throughput. These sorts of things work good for short range low noise/drop situations. It is the ack stall that they are eliminating which is where TCP starts to shine when it backs off because of other network issues.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[Randle_Revar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_Control_Transmission_Protocol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datagram_Congestion_Control_Protocol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliable_User_Datagram_Protocol

SCTP is the most widely used of those AFAIK

There is also the RTSP/RTP/RTCP trio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Streaming_Protocol) which are application layer (like HTTP, etc), built on UDP instead of TCP

Re:how about efficient streams?

[amorsen]

TCP is not used for Video or Audio streaming as you do not want to have a lost packet cause a fault in the stream.

TCP is probably the most widely used protocol for video streaming. E.g. Youtube streams over TCP. Using TCP means you have more delay, because you have to wait for the occasional retransmit instead of just dropping a frame, but TCP is much easier to deal with overall. Network cards and IP stacks are optimized for TCP, firewalls handle TCP universally well... Unless it really matters that you are 10 seconds behind live (and it rarely does, even cable TV is several seconds behind live), go with TCP.

Video conferencing over TCP is probably not going to happen anytime soon though.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[KingMotley]

I agree that TCP congestion control helps prevent hogging bandwidth, but TCP streams only using at most 33.33% of the network varies greatly on the latency, the amount of buffers in the routers between both connections, and window size. Properly tuned TCP stacks can achieve MUCH higher network utilization than that, including most current windows OS's.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[TemporalBeing]

TCP is not used for Video or Audio streaming as you do not want to have a lost packet cause a fault in the stream.

TCP is probably the most widely used protocol for video streaming. E.g. Youtube streams over TCP. Using TCP means you have more delay, because you have to wait for the occasional retransmit instead of just dropping a frame, but TCP is much easier to deal with overall. Network cards and IP stacks are optimized for TCP, firewalls handle TCP universally well... Unless it really matters that you are 10 seconds behind live (and it rarely does, even cable TV is several seconds behind live), go with TCP.

Video conferencing over TCP is probably not going to happen anytime soon though.

Uhh..no. All streaming services typically use UDP. You don't care if a frame is dropped, but you do care about the performance for the end-user. You cannot get that with TCP. You may be surprised to find YouTube, et al use UDP for the actual streaming. You may also be surprised to find that networks and IP stacks are just as optimized for UDP - they can't really tell the difference. TCP and UDP both build on top of the IP stack, whether IPv4 or IPv6.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[TemporalBeing]

I agree that TCP congestion control helps prevent hogging bandwidth, but TCP streams only using at most 33.33% of the network varies greatly on the latency, the amount of buffers in the routers between both connections, and window size. Properly tuned TCP stacks can achieve MUCH higher network utilization than that, including most current windows OS's.

Funny thing...I've done testing with directly connected computers using Fiber Channel. I didn't just pull the number out of thin air. And yes, you can do a little to adjust that; however, it's primarily the result of TCP's default control algorithm - Additive Increase, Multiplicative Decrease - which again, you can change. There has been proposals for Multiplicative Increase, Muliplicative Decrease algorithsms too, and you can certainly set those up in your Linux Kernel (and BSDs); but support for them is not very great in the wild.

Re:how about efficient streams?

[amorsen]

Before I sent my original comment I did a tcpdump on YouTube just to be sure. TCP all the way.

And I can assure you that the IP stacks can tell the difference. Just look at the TCP offloading done in Linux. Only recently has some work been done on optimizing UDP offload, and it is nowhere near as mature.

Don't see how that's better.

[stewsters]

Premium Video Extensions - That sounds like a plugin. Its good if you want to lock people into one video system, but definitely not html 5.

Re:Don't see how that's better.

[wvmarle]

It's supposed to be HTML5 - but is this really a standard?

If so, what is stopping other people (e.g. some Firefox extension developers) to build the exact same thing, allowing Netflix videos to play in other browsers?

And: how're they going to stop such plugins from not following the restrictions asked for by the DRM?

Re:Don't see how that's better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Flash...

Re:Don't see how that's better.

[h4rr4r]

Your "and" explains your previous question.

They can't allow Firefox or anyone else to support this DRM directly since it would be trivial at that point to just ignore the content restrictions.

Re:Don't see how that's better.

[wagnerrp]

If so, what is stopping other people (e.g. some Firefox extension developers) to build the exact same thing, allowing Netflix videos to play in other browsers?

Nothing prevents Firefox from implementing HTML5 ECE, but then nothing is requiring Netflix to support Firefox as an approved browser for their ECE module. Of course, trying to re-implement the ECE module itself to independently support Netflix is a federal crime under the DMCA.

Re:Don't see how that's better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lack of access to the crypto signing keys? I sincerely doubt MS will crypto sign your Firefox plugin for you.

Re:Don't see how that's better.

[Chrontius]

I suspect re-implementing ECE would be covered under the "reverse engineering for compatibility" clause.

I also suspect that you'd be lawyered into a smoldering crater within a week of announcing the project, so whether it's actually legal is a moot point.

Re:Don't see how that's better.

[wagnerrp]

There are two parts to this thing. There is the ECE interface that the browser provides, and the ECE module, which hooks in through that interface, and performs the various DRM functions. You would have to re-implement the ECE module provided by Netflix, not the ECE interface that is a published standard that anyone can comply with. The trouble is that even though you may provide the published interface, there is no requirement for the module to authorize you as a trusted browser. In fact, it would be foolish for any ECE module to authorize Firefox, Chromium, or any other open source browser as trusted, as the user has control over the source code, and thus the browsers inherently cannot be trusted to deny access to the user

If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[jpstanle]

If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Lunix Nutcase]

The 90% of desktop users that use Windows?

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[h4rr4r]

They already had netflix working just fine. So why would they care?

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Lunix Nutcase]

No need for Silverlight which was never very popular.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not intended to be MS only if you read the article. No pressure or anything, you can just keep posting B$ based on a title though. Obviously hasn't deterred you so far in life.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[h4rr4r]

So instead they install this plugin from widevine, which likely only netflix will use and thus not be very popular.

Wow, what an improvement

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[h4rr4r]

Oh wow, it will run on OSX too and for the three folks with chromebooks ChromeOS.

Wow, how amazing. They managed to add one minor OS to the previous supported list.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is sad. As a developer who has used both Flash and Silverlight, I find Silverlight a vastly superior platform to develop for. Alas, Microsoft's late entry to the game and lack of marketing have probably doomed it already, and Netflix switching off of it will probably be the last nail in the coffin.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 90% of desktop users that use Windows?

The PS3 is the most used Netflix client.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[h4rr4r]

Try using it on not windows and get back to me.
Any flash replacement needs to at least support as many platforms if not more.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[xvan]

Until now, no DRM stack on x86 linux was because Microsoft is being an asshole. At least that's what someone says de Icaza told him:

The problem with supporting PlayReady is that Microsoft does not
currently license PlayReady for desktop use, they only license it for
embedded systems use.

Embedded systems are perceived as being more secure and as being
harder for an attacker to break the DRM. I remain skeptic about this
point, but those are the rules under which they allow PlayReady to be
licensed and we are not in a position to license it for the desktop.

We are aware of some vendors using Linux + Moonlight on embedded
systems that are engaging Microsoft to license PlayReady DRM and will make those combinations work out of the box on an embedded system.

It might be possible that all Embedded netflix implementations use this "Play Ready" licensed stack. I don't think so, but it's a possibility. So now that Netflix has their own DRM stack, there is a new light for official Netflix on linux (if they care enough for my money).

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[sangreal66]

No, PS3 is the most used "TV-connected" Netflix client.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Richy_T]

Netflix already ran on my Chromebook.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[h4rr4r]

How is that not abuse of a monopoly position?

We will not license our software to people who compete with us in our main market to protect that market at all costs.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

90% of desktop users made up of 80% corporate users stuck on Windows XP.

The number of Windows 8.1 users is roughly zero right now.

I don't think desktop users really give a shit.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Bengie]

Because people watch Netflix at work? Everyone else has a home computer with Win7.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 90% of desktop users that use Windows?

Don't forget the 15% (if that) of mobile! They're a powerful force!

Just like the Zune! Zune! Zune!

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wow, it will run on OSX too and for the three folks with chromebooks ChromeOS.

Wow, how amazing. They managed to add one minor OS to the previous supported list.

I don't get why you are so snarky to this correction. Calling it "MS only" is clearly factually incorrect, and not only as in a nitpick manner but as in a "the statement is completely wrong" manner.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

90% of desktop computers may be Windows, but 44% of internet browsers are Google Chrome,followed by IE (22%) and Firefox (18%)

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[TemporalBeing]

. At least that's what someone says de Icaza told him:

And why would you believe anything de Icaza says? Especially as it relates to Microsoft?

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[pr0fessor]

It runs on a lot of the android based phones, tablets, and tv box sets too. {the tv box sets are starting to get a lot nicer and cheaper}

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Wookact]

You have some pent up anger there, what happened did someone in a red hat hurt your mother or something?

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[h4rr4r]

I am not being snarky at all. I never said it was MS only. The GP said that.

He is right in that this will work on Chrome and eventually OSX. The funny part to me is that this means there is no change in what is supported. So that makes this mighty pointless.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[gcerullo]

As a developer you should keep up with the news. Microsoft already announced that they are not going to develop Silverlight past v5, the current version, and support for the current version will end in 2021.

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[Chrontius]

The 50% of laptop users that use Mac OSX?

Re:If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

[exomondo]

If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

It's MS-only because MS are the only ones that have implemented WebCrypto at the moment (and it's only in a pre-release build of IE) Netflix has stated that Google are currently working on doing that in Chrome but it's just not finished yet. At this stage everybody pretty much continues to use silverlight as before.

what about chrome os?

[Anonymous Coward]

does it not run in html5 on there?

Re:what about chrome os?

[Lunix Nutcase]

Yes, through the same Premium Video Extensions that is being used here.

Re:what about chrome os?

[realityimpaired]

If that suggests/implies it'll eventually work on Linux with HTML5/extensions on Chrome browser, I can live with that.

All the shouting about DRM being evil and everything doesn't really accomplish what we want. You end up looking like a zealot, and you would have better luck holding back the tide with a thimble. If you want to get rid of DRM, you need to show them that it's not necessary. The best way you can do that is by not pirating their stuff, and actually paying for it if you feel that it's worth paying for. If you don't think it's worth the price they're charging, then don't pay it, but don't download it and then rationalize it by saying that it's too expensive to pay for, or you plan on deleting it once you've watched it. The people creating content have a right to set the price they want to charge for it, and you, the consumer, have a right to vote with your wallet. But voting with your wallet does *not* mean circumventing the rights of the creators, it means not consuming the product at all.

And I realize there's a very good chance that you don't download stuff that you haven't paid for, and that I'm ranting at the wrong person, but I have absolutely zero sympathy for the people who piss and moan about DRM in one breath, and then talk about how they download their movies and music because information wants to be free. These people are the reason DRM exists in the first place. I don't like DRM either, but as long as it doesn't interfere with the legitimate use of a product or service I'm paying for, I don't really notice it. If it starts to interfere with my use, I simply won't buy the product in question. The market will sort itself out, but as long as people keep giving them a reason to invent more draconian methods, those methods are going to keep being created.

Re:what about chrome os?

[h4rr4r]

It does not suggest that, nor will that ever happen.

It is simply impossible to do so, since nothing would stop you from writing the output into a file. Unless you want to be booting a netflix signed kernel on your netflix signed hardware.

Re:what about chrome os?

[Microlith]

If that suggests/implies it'll eventually work on Linux with HTML5/extensions on Chrome browser, I can live with that.

It doesn't in the slightest.

You end up looking like a zealot

Rejecting flawed schemes that do nothing to accomplish the intended goal is zealotry?

If you want to get rid of DRM, you need to show them that it's not necessary.

It isn't necessary. It has already failed and will always fail. The problems is those who demand it the most are engaging in magical thinking and, like the most common magical thinkers, believe in DRM with blind faith.

These people are the reason DRM exists in the first place.

DRM is about enforcing decaying business models and exerting control well past the point of sale (or eliminating the "sale" completely and moving towards perpetual rentership. See DivX.

Re:what about chrome os?

[devent]

If everyone would embrace that DRM is evil and violets your rights then we would accomplish what we want. Netflix and Hollywood is just a tiny minority, and they are still a tiny minority on the Open Web.

But politicians and the W3C sucking up to Hollywood and to all the lobbying groups that spend Millions of dollars to push for harder punishments and stricter copyright. And it will not end at your videos, music and ebooks. I'm talking about fundamental rights, like property rights, re-sale rights, freedom of speech, privacy rights.

If DRM and copyright would all about videos from Netflix I wouldn't care at the least. But the Hollywood, MAFIA, RIAA lobby is like a forest fire that will burn everything to the ground to maximize profits for a few groups.

Re:what about chrome os?

[Mathinker]

> If it starts to interfere with my use, I simply won't buy the product in question.

This statement as you wrote it doesn't seem to make sense --- how could DRM interfere with your use before you buy the product in question?

So, if I assume that means that you plan ahead, for example, based on historical experience with DRM, I guess that means you don't buy anything with DRM. But then your whole post doesn't make sense...

> These people are the reason DRM exists in the first place.

No their not. The content industry's total inability to undergo the withdrawal symptoms from the powerful drug it became addicted to --- (practically) total control over the advertising, supply, and distribution of its product sector --- is the reason for DRM.

Re:what about chrome os?

[Tighe_L]

Funny, as you can already do this on any rooted Android and the Netflix app. It didn't stop netflix from making the Android app. Your point is invalid. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ms.screencast&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5tcy5zY3JlZW5jYXN0Il0.

Re:what about chrome os?

[h4rr4r]

Well then why have DRM at all?

Re:what about chrome os?

[tepples]

If you want to get rid of DRM, you need to show them that it's not necessary. The best way you can do that is by not pirating their stuff

The trouble is that even if I create my own stuff instead of pirating their stuff, some big publishers are likely to claim that my stuff is too similar. I know of companies that already do that.

Re:what about chrome os?

[CastrTroy]

This is oh so very true. Nobody "needs" to watch the latest movie or TV episode. Pirating content just gives them ammunition to push government for laws against breaking DRM, and justifies their use of DRM. If there was nobody pirating the content, there would be no use for the DRM to be there in the first place. Netflix gives more more content than I could ever hope to watch. Sure, it may not have specific movies that I want, but at $7.99 a month, it certainly is a great deal. That's less than the cost of 2 movie rentals with Blockbuster.

Re:what about chrome os?

[evilviper]

If you want to get rid of DRM, you need to show them that it's not necessary. The best way you can do that is by not pirating their stuff, and actually paying for it if you feel that it's worth paying for.

Not true at all. You only need to "show them" that there are other, easier ways to copy "their stuff".

Music download services didn't go DRM-free because people stopped illegally downloading them... They went DRM-free because attempts to add DRM to CDs failed miserably, so DRM on downloads was a pointless restriction that penalized legitimate paying customers.

The same is true for Netflix. As long as people can get the videos on DVD and Blu-ray, where it's easy to rip and redistribute, there's little reason for anyone to WANT the hassle of downloading their lower quality Netflix streams, yet the DRM adds extra hassle for paying customers, and cuts off some of the potential market.

And what's more, this is a story that's repeated over and over again. Media companies resist new technology as much as possible, biting and scratching as they're dragged into the future, screaming that their business model is destroyed. Then when they finally get there, against their will, it turns out they can actually make much more money than before. It has happened before, it is happening now, and it'll happen again. The RIAA just had to face these issues slightly earlier than the MPAA, so the latter is still somewhere in the middle of their 7-stage process.

Re:what about chrome os?

[Tighe_L]

Keeping up appearances, making is somewhat difficult?

Re:what about chrome os?

[Microlith]

Because Netflix and the RIAA/MPAA are full of shit?

Re:what about chrome os?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why couldn't you do the same thing on Windows? You could write a windows video driver that did this. Failing that, you could record the video off the wire. All of these methods result in some loss of quality, but if Netflix released a binary blob for Linux, it wouldn't open them up to an additional avenue of attack.

Re:what about chrome os?

[h4rr4r]

Because the protected path will shut itself off if you load a driver not blessed by MS. So unless you have signing keys forget about that. This is one of the ways windows protects media from the PC owner.

Recording off the HDMI would not cause any quality loss.

A binary blob for Linux would mean copying the media would be as simple as capturing the output or using tee.

Re:what about chrome os?

[SJHiIlman]

Nobody "needs" to watch the latest movie or TV episode. Pirating content just gives them ammunition to push government for laws against breaking DRM

Wishful thinking. The reality is that they'll always use copyright infringement as an excuse to lobby for draconian laws and harm their customers. Do not think of it as anything more than a terrible excuse.

Re:what about chrome os?

[Anonymous Coward]

If being vocal about NOT letting the content providers infest my systems with ineffectual, time-and-energy wasting nonsense like DRM is "zealotry", then count me a zealot.

If you don't fight back against this kind of insulting garbage, you'll only get more of it. Of course, that doesn't mean you'll win. But not doing anything and just accepting it as "the reality" is pretty much like trusting Starscream to not shoot you in the back.

I would much rather not pay multiple times for the same content, first in terms of cash, then again and again just to be able to view it. How about the content providers prove their content is worth all of that frustration, rather than ask me to prove my loyalty over and over again? I've already stopped caring about moves and TV entirely because of this charade.

Re:what about chrome os?

[Anonymous Coward]

f a movie is worth say 5$ for me to watch,
then any (non-cracked) DRM needed for that movie (and the attempt to determine the devices/programs I can play there stuff on) is worth -10$, I conclude that if they want me to watch stuff with the DRM they oughta be paying me, they're not.

If I employ the same reasoning they apply to piracy that means they're stealing from me (ridiciulus in both cases ofc)

Re:what about chrome os?

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM is about enforcing decaying business models and exerting control well past the point of sale (or eliminating the "sale" completely and moving towards perpetual rentership. See DivX.

Well we wouldn't want that in a video rental service. What a fucking toolbag.

You lost me at "premium"

[Anonymous Coward]

And drove me insane with "These extensions allow playback of premium video (read: with DRM protection) directly in the browser without the need to install plugins such as Silverlight or Flash."

Yarrr, matey.

Extend

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm starting to HATE the word "extension".

Re:Extend

[Anonymous Coward]

Do your homework. "Extension" in this case is from the wording of the W3C, the standards body that governs HTML5. The "Premium Video Extensions" mentioned by Netflix refer to simply new JavaScript APIs added to the HTML5 specification. IE11 implemented those and Netflix's new app uses them. There is no "browser extension" or browser plugin used by the Netflix app - it IS pure HTML5. DRM is handled by the HTML5 EME interface, which MS hooked into PlayReady inside the browser. But that implementation is all MS and has nothing to do with Netflix, except that Netflix streams must support PlayReady DRM which they already do.

HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Extended

[apcullen]

FTFA:

According to Netflix, Microsoft made this possible by implementing three features in its still-unfinished IE11:

The Media Source Extensions (MSE), using the Media Foundation APIs within Windows. Since Media Foundation supports hardware acceleration using the GPU, Netflix can achieve high quality 1080p video playback with minimal CPU and battery utilization.
The Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) using Microsoft PlayReady DRM. This provides the content protection needed for media services like Netflix.
The Web Cryptography API (WebCrypto), which allows Netflix to encrypt and decrypt communication between its JavaScript application and its servers.

Sounds like this is locked into windows via the Media Foundation APIs

It's not only MS....

[tlambert]

If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

It's already in Chrome OS on Samsung ARM-based ChromeBooks. They beat Windows to the punch a while ago.

The only thing new here is that it's now also in Windows 8.1 preview IE11.

What it's likely never going to be is generic to a non-locked down browser implementation, which means it's not going to be on a BSD or Linux system without some form of lockdown. Otherwise it's too easy to do unencrypted frame grabbing to de-DRM the content, which is precisely what they don't want.

Of course, it's not like you couldn't just hook up one of these in place of the flat panel LCD and capture it unencrypted anyway:

http://www.unigraf.fi/product/ufg-04-lvds-quad
http://www.goepel.com/?id=2392&L=4
http://www.teledynedalsa.com/imaging/products/fg/OR-64L0-00080/

Re:It's not only MS....

[qbast]

So in other words - Linux users get screwed as usual.

Re:It's not only MS....

[Anonymous Coward]

No, more like Linux users just download and watch it, after a minor ethical dilemma.

Re:It's not only MS....

[h4rr4r]

Or you could just get them to mail you DVDs or BluRay disks that are trivial to rip.

Netflix is likely already the biggest distributer of media being pirated via their disk mailing business.

You would not even have to worry about being sued, unless you tell someone what you are doing.

Re:It's not only MS....

[Anonymous Coward]

When the entrenched corporate powers don't give the OSS community what it wants, the OSS community makes it itself!

So...create your own open source movie production studio that distributes its movies under the GPL. Nobody is stopping you from doing that, and making sure it is all compatible with Linux.

Then you won't need their silly pay-for movies and DRM crap.

Re:It's not only MS....

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh boohoo. Linux users are demanding, unfriendly and represent less of the marketshare than those still running Win98. Even if Netflix offered up something for the Linuxheads there would only be slight adoptions between the free-as-in-speech crowd and the IP-wants-to-be-free crowd.

It makes about as much sense to put something out there to encompass the Linuxheads as it does to open a HoneyBaked Ham shop in Mecca.

Re:It's not only MS....

[Anonymous Coward]

Otherwise it's too easy to do unencrypted frame grabbing to de-DRM the content, which is precisely what they don't want.

If it is possible to view the content on a computer of any kind, then it is extremely easy to capture said content in a non-restricted format. Any half-decent screen capture software can be set up to record what's on the screen and coming through the speakers.

Therefore there is no argument for DRM's effectiveness which can actually be substantiated.

Re:It's not only MS....

[Bengie]

The Linux crowd includes cheap effective set-top boxes, like Roku. You may want to alter your argument.

Re:It's not only MS....

[Anonymous Coward]

The vast majority of people running set top boxes (or other integrated systems) running Linux have no idea that Linux is being used and even if they do they don't care what the box uses. Stop being one of these Slashtards who tries to act like everyone who owns a device that uses some form of Linux is a Linux enthusiast.

Furthermore, if you really felt this way you would have replied to qbast that Linux users didn't get "screwed" because there is indeed a Linux solution if you buy Roku. But you didn't because you know the point that was being made. You ignored that point when it came to my post and that makes you a frigging troll.

Re:It's not only MS....

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. My ex had a Netflix AND Blockbuster's video service (not sure if it's still around anymore) and that's all she did. It was about a 12 hour ordeal to rip all those discs, but there were backups of all of the movies. She didn't ever distribute them, but she was as technical as a common college student with no interest in computers, at best; she figured out what she needed to do very quickly.

Re:It's not only MS....

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's that the ideologies are incompatible, the free camp wants what the non-free camp is producing but wants it on their terms and the non-free content producer doesn't want to offer it on those terms. It really is that simple, so the discussion reaches an impasse and the free camp is left with only the content produced by people who share their ideology (and there is a surprisingly large amount of it), so what's wrong with that?

Re:It's not only MS....

[Anonymous Coward]

Alteration: Millions of Linux desktop and laptop PC users are still screwed.

Re:It's not only MS....

[TranquilVoid]

Of course, it's not like you couldn't just hook up one of these in place of the flat panel LCD and capture it unencrypted anyway:

I'm not familiar with these, but surely they wouldn't work if the DRM plugin uses HDCP?

Re:It's not only MS....

[qbast]

Why all the downvoting? Parent summarized the situation very accurately.

NIX??

[erikwestlund]

Question is: Will it work on Linux? If so, that's the big story here. Then I (and many others) wouldn't have to Hackintosh or put Windows on their (HT)PC to watch Netflix.

If so, this is a story.

Re:NIX??

[Lunix Nutcase]

Sure, find a browser that implements PVE like Google did for ChromeOS.

Re:NIX??

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, not unless the PVE extension in question supports the OS. Supporting PVE doesn't mean that PVE will support you.

Re:NIX??

[h4rr4r]

Nope, the OS underneath has to support it too. Since it must deprive the user of control of his computer to ensure security.

Re:NIX??

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Because you entitled fosstards will demand more and more support of your fragmented shitfest of an OS. Then you'll demand the entire thing be open sourced. You'll never be satisfied and you'll bitch loudly and non-stop. Even if they did everything you want, you'd start running benchmarks and bitching that the Windows version uses less CPU or some dumb shit.

Maybe you should all eat shit off your feet on camera like your god Richard Stallman does.

Re:NIX??

[ArcadeMan]

My browser only implements PVP.

"Such as"

[Cajun Hell]

These extensions allow playback of premium video (read: with DRM protection) directly in the browser without the need to install plugins such as Silverlight or Flash.

Geez, talk about stretching the meaning of "such as." The whole point of this is that it lets you play it in the browser by installing a proprietary single-source plugin. Sure, you can argue that your plugin isn't "like" Sliverlight or Flash, just like Microsoft might say Silverlight is also not a plugin like Flash, and Adobe might argue that Flash is not a plugin like Java. And the guy serving malware on porn sites might argue his video codec is not a malware plugin like the other ones are. "My plugin takes spam-sending orders from this botnet, not that botnet! See? It's totally different!"

That is exactly how these extensions are not plugins like Flash or Silverlight. In other words: totally meaningless bullshit. It's just another plugin, which happens to use a newer API.

Lie all you want about it not being a plugin, but the lie is pretty transparent and does more to discredit the speaker than it does to really deceive anyone.

Re:"Such as"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a certainty, but I'd hope that a plugin designed with the sole purpose of decrypting a video stream would have far fewer vulnerabilities than a plugin that implements an entire sandboxed runtime environment designed to execute third-party code, especially when that runtime has an embedded video decryption ability.

The benefit of HTML5/ECE is that it draws the smallest box possible around the one thing that can't, by design, be open and then wraps that closed box with openness. Open purists will complain (vociferously and ad nauseam) that there is still a closed component to the solution. But that fact doesn't change the fact that the situation is slightly better when that box gets smaller.

Microsoft?

[metrix007]

I thought the W3C was coming up with the DRM for HTML5, in the form of encrypted media extensions?

That would have meant Netflix would work in any browser, would it not?

Oh well. If it doesn't, at least I can still download the rips of their stuff and watch it in linux. I pay for Netflix to support original content, but I'm glad piracy exists so I can get what I pay for on my platform of choice.

Re:Microsoft?

[metrix007]

Ahh, so it seems that it is using the W3C extensions, it's just that Microsoft has implemented them in IE before other browsers have.

Bravo!

Re:Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

The W3C-specified stuff is basically a new kind of plugin interface, not the DRM itself. You will still need that plugin to support your OS, not just the browser, because it's the thing doing the important work, not the browser.

Effectively, this is just another kind of Silverlight or Flash, except it does far less and works on fewer OSes and browsers right now.

Re:Microsoft?

[metrix007]

Where are you getting that from?

Re:Microsoft?

[Microlith]

Bravo! They have implemented DRM centered around preserving someone else's business model while solving no problems whatsoever!

Re:Microsoft?

[Microlith]

That's the definition of the ECE spec. It's literally Yet Another Plugin Interface that solves no problems but establishes in the HTML5 standard a path by which you can be HTML5 compliant but unable to access swaths of content on the web.

Re:Microsoft?

[recoiledsnake]

No, Chrome and Chromebook were first.

http://hothardware.com/News/Netflix-Backing-HTML5-But-Not-Without-DRM-In-Place/

Re:Microsoft?

[Randle_Revar]

No bravo here, the EME just allows the loading of Content Decryption Modules (CDMs), which are plugins by any other name. In terms of being able to play content on any browser/os you want, this is a retreat from the 00s era of Flash everywhere back to the 90s era of "install this random plugin, please!"

DRM?!

[TyFoN]

I don't get it.

Netflix has aged content, at least in my country it was 2-3 seasons behind, no one will rip that.

Pirates don't rip streaming media but Blurry discs or something of higher quality.
Regular users download their stuff if not using a service like this.

You lock out a lot of users/platforms denting bottom line.

They might be worried that people will "copy" the stuff when viewing for later viewing without subscription?
Again, you have much better/higher quality sources for this type of behavior

Grrr...

Re:DRM?!

[Shados]

I don't know if it changed but when I was in Canada, Netflix content was horribly outdated. In the US however, not so. They have a lot of brand new stuff.

Without DRM, someone could use a basic chrome plugin or a greasemonkey script to download the original video straight up, with virtually no need to rip anything.

Im not saying I agree, but its not as simple as you make it sound.

That said, Im curious how many people actually watch netflix online anymore, with the proliferation of set top boxes and netflix being built in every console, smart TVs and mobile devices under the sun.

Just on top of my head, at home we have 3 phones, 4 nintendo 3DS, WiiU, Xbox, blu ray player, the smart tv, the Roku and 2 android tablets with HDMI output that can run Netflix. Thats not counting any x86 machines....

Re:DRM?!

[xvan]

Without DRM, someone could use a basic chrome plugin or a greasemonkey script to download the original video straight up, with virtually no need to rip anything.

The people that can do that, are the same people that can torrent. The people that torrent and pay Netflix, do that because of the high downstreem speeds.

The DRM battle isn't a technical but a psychological one.
DRM doesn't prevent you from 'playin on unauthorized devices' as long as the media is available somewhere else, stripped from DRM, and cheaper than the DRM'd one.

DRM objective is to provide the illusion that you are legitimacy, to reinforce the reason for spending money on something that otherwise can be obtained for free*

Otherwise, i cannot find a logical explanation for DRM, as it bothers your customers, giving them a reason to learn how to learn how use 'alternative ways'. *free if you ignore the time and moral cost.

Re:DRM?!

[bmk67]

Exactly right.

Netflix: By the time content hits your service, it's already been pirated, from much higher quality sources, and is widely available to download.

Nobody wants or needs to rip your streams.

Re:DRM?!

[FlyMysticalDJ]

Pirates don't rip streaming media but Blurry discs or something of higher quality.

If it's a blurry disc, wouldn't it be lower quality? *badum tish*

Microsoft Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft intentionally created an incompatible version of Java in order to poison the well.
That works great for Microsoft, but not so well for anybody who intends to invest time/money into software development.
After learning about that, I've avoided Microsoft technology like the plague.

Silverlight is just the latest in a long line of poisoned platforms. I'm glad that I never jumped on board.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have to install a plugin. I have to install an extension instead. Can someone tell me how/why this is better/different? FFS!

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a PR release, not a news story.

Re:Really?

[kannibal_klown]

I don't have to install a plugin. I have to install an extension instead. Can someone tell me how/why this is better/different? FFS!

A) people don't like Silverlight

B) the rumor is Microsoft is dropping Silverlight

If (B) is true then you probably want some sort of alternative. For example, depending on how they code, the plug-in could be fairly modular. If that company / group goes belly-up then hopefully by then there are more modules to pick from.

Re:LOL consumertards

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL consumertards... still watching advertisements

Why doesn't Netflix just create their own app?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously... get out of the damn browser. You want a closed source app that enforces DRM -- fine! Then just distribute an .EXE that installs your own custom app! Tada!

The power of the web is its openness. Not some magic property of being in a browser.

Mac users

[phorm]

Indeed. Netflix current works for Mac users... what's going to happen to them?

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[TopSpin]

Sounds like this is locked into windows via the Media Foundation APIs

There may be lock in, but it's not exclusive to Microsoft:

Media Source Extensions (MSE) This specification extends HTMLMediaElement to allow JavaScript to generate media streams for playback. Allowing JavaScript to generate streams facilitates a variety of use cases like adaptive streaming and time shifting live streams.

Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) This proposal extends HTMLMediaElement providing APIs to control playback of protected content.

Web Cryptography API (WebCrypto) This specification describes a JavaScript API for performing basic cryptographic operations in web applications, such as hashing, signature generation and verification, and encryption and decryption.

They're all W3C standards track specifications. The first two have editors from the same three corporations; Google, Microsoft and Netflix. Google, in particular, can't tolerate not being capable of playing Netflix (10% of the population of the US subscribes to this) on its platforms (Android and Chrome OS.) It already works on both and you can take it for granted that Google expects to achieve parity with these specifications.

The last specification is not specific to streaming; it's a general purpose Javascript API to perform common cryptographic operations.

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[h4rr4r]

None of that changes the fact that these are simply incompatible with FOSS. No FOSS browser on a FOSS OS can ever support these. Well unless you want DRMed hardware, but then you might as well just give it all up anyway.

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like this is locked into windows via the Media Foundation APIs

Bastards! That means that you cannot run IE11 outside of Windows. Oh wait...

Firefox

[Torodung]

How does this play out in the release version of Firefox? Because in TFA it sounds like, very soon, I may not be able to watch Netflix on my computer any more without a preview version of IE. :^(

For now, it's just use Silverlight, but will MS share its new platform lockdown?

Re:Firefox

[h4rr4r]

Firefox can't support this. They best they could ever hope to do is pass this data to the OS and let it do the work. That will only work on Windows. OSX will likely get its own version and that will be it.

The OS has to protect itself from its owner to do this sort of thing. If you actually had control over the computer this would never work. Which is why it will not be supported on linux running on non-locked down hardware.

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[TopSpin]

None of that changes the fact that these are simply incompatible with FOSS

No claim made to the contrary. It's still lock in, as I said. It's just not specific to Microsoft.

Reading comprehension. Try it sometime.

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. A FOSS browser can easily support a fully reverse engineered copy.

The Silverlight streaming is still better

[elabs]

MPEG DASH is nice but it's no Silverlight replacement.

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[devent]

Bullshit. The W3C "standard" is only a plugin API.
The EME is tied to vendor provided Content Decryption Modules (CDMs). The standard does not specify the CDMs at all. It's a black box with "do as you like" label.

So even if the web content is using EME it does not mean at all that you can watch the content in your web browser. Just like you cannot watch Flash content without Flash, you will not be able to watch content without the vendor CDM.

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[TopSpin]

you will not be able to watch content without the vendor CDM.

Didn't claim you would be able to. I just pointed out that it isn't Microsoft only. The point of the original post was that the HTML5 extensions were "locked into windows," which they are clearly not. It may be locked into all kinds of other crap, but it's not Windows only.

And stop foaming at the mouth.

I have an idea

[slashmydots]

Since they utterly screwed up the silverlight app that they run in IE10 and you now have to watch netflix with Firefox, which is slightly less glitchy, how about they fix that instead? You know, since nobody uses Windows 8 or 8.1 or IE11. Spending a ton of money on a giant project that affects nearly 0% of your userbase is pretty darn stupid.

Re:LOL consumertards

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL entitled babies... get a job

I rarely watch Netflix on the computer...

[Zaatxe]

Am I an exception? 99.9% of the time I spend on Netflix is either on iPad or on my Samsung Smart TV.

Vicious circle.

[Firethorn]

You lock out a lot of users/platforms denting bottom line.

While no DRM would please the users, it would mightily displease the content owners, which Netflix is contracting with to legally provide their video streams. The vast majority of them *ABSOLUTELY DEMAND* DRM, as in not having it means Netflix can't legally offer their content.

Less content = less value = no customers anyways.

It's a bit of a crappy spot for Netflix to be in. Annoy the customers with DRM, or have no real content?

Re:Vicious circle.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a bit of a crappy spot for Netflix to be in. Annoy the customers with DRM, or have no real content?

+1 Insightful. I don't have mod points today or I'd mod you up.

mono-culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that would still be HTML5. That's why adding ECE to HTML5 is stupid: it solves none of the problems of Flash plugins while opening the door for a multitude of similar DRM plugins, each with its own, unique attack surface.

Which helps reduce the monoculture of Flash, which isn't necessarilly a bad thing. And if you can completely get rid of Flash, then only those who have particular DRM plug-ins installed will be vulnerable to particular vulnerabilities--instead of almost every PC out there, which is what we currently have with Flash DRM.

now IE only

[Anonymous Coward]

So... before you could install Silverlight on any browser. Now you can ONLY use IE. Progress? Yes progress towards an IE-only Internet. Experts...

big problems uhhh huhh

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't give a fuck if some site I want to use needs me to install something. I never did, I'll just install it and that doesn't bother me the slightest. I really could not give less of a fuck about it.

Still Useless...

[Anonymous Coward]

And for the umpteenth time why no linux support and the reliance on IE11 to get NetFlix working... You would think by now they would make a decent app/player you could run for it's service which handles all the fancy DRM crap and playback of your shows, then make it available on Win, Mac and Linux already... Lazy gits!

Re:Still Useless...

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, and the fact you'll be tied to shitty IE.

Re:Still Useless...

[Mike Frett]

Incidentally, I was reading through my twitter and some devs were chatting about how people shouldn't lock themselves into Microsoft's proprietary formats. Because when Microsoft or that particular program goes, you're pretty much screwed. Netflix putting all it's Eggs in the Microsoft basket is just asking for failure.

There are three kinds of Linux system

[tepples]

The Linux crowd includes cheap effective set-top boxes, like Roku. You may want to alter your argument.

And it is then that you realize why Richard Stallman insisted on the term GNU/Linux. Graphical computers that use the Linux kernel can be divided into three categories. The first is GNU/Linux, which uses glibc, GNU Coreutils, an X11 server, and a Free desktop environment such as Xfce, KDE Plasma, GNOME, or Unity. The second is Android. The third is embedded Linux, seen on home router appliances and "cheap effective set-top boxes", and this variant is the most likely of the three to be thoroughly Tivoized.

Netflix VOD has no monopoly

[tepples]

You can't abuse market power until you have market power. Netflix VOD has no monopoly. It competes with Amazon Prime and with disc rental.

Re:Netflix VOD has no monopoly

[h4rr4r]

I meant Microsoft not licensing their tech out for use on desktops.

Re:Netflix VOD has no monopoly

[tepples]

Microsoft has no monopoly either, as I understand it. A VOD provider can license an installable Content Decryption Module from one of Microsoft's competitors.

Re:Netflix VOD has no monopoly

[h4rr4r]

Let me be more clear.

MS has a desktop monopoly, now they refuse to sell their CDM to other people operating in that space. Is that kosher or not?

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[tepples]

Even if HTML5 EME isn't "locked into Windows", Netflix appears to have chosen a Content Decryption Module that is.

DRM in HTML5 ...nope not using netflix now ..ever

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM is just a new way to hide spyware on us all.

Netflix Currently Works in Linux

[mindmaster064]

Due to mono and wine I am able to view any content via streaming. This just means it'll be even simpler since I won't need the sluggish mono/silverlight layer.

Re:Netflix Currently Works in Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Due to mono and wine I am able to view any content via streaming. This just means it'll be even simpler since I won't need the sluggish mono/silverlight layer.

Sorry to hear that you contracted mono. Get well soon.

If anybody else can make a competing CDM

[tepples]

MS has a desktop monopoly, now they refuse to sell their CDM to other people operating in that space. Is that kosher or not?

It's kosher as long as anybody else can make a competing CDM that supports Windows and other platforms and sell it to VOD providers. Let me draw an analogy: Microsoft has a desktop monopoly and refuses to sell Halo 2 for other desktop operating systems. Is that kosher? Yes, because anybody else can sell a competing first-person shooter.

The real issue is that GNU/Linux lacks the infrastructure to support a CDM acceptable to the movie studios. To the developers of Linux and X.Org X11, "DRM" means direct rendering manager, not digital restrictions management. I haven't really seen any way to turn off cleartext digital outputs and keep debuggers and hypervisors from teeing the decrypted video to a file.

Re:If anybody else can make a competing CDM

[h4rr4r]

I think the issue is GNU/Linux can't have that infrastructure, how would it even work?

Go ahead and see how long a kernel module to enforce that kind of thing lasts before it just ends up being lobotomized enough to lie to the DRM server.

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[devent]

Call me again when Netflix is offering a CDM for Linux.

> And stop foaming at the mouth.

I call bullshit if I see it.

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[shutdown -p now]

Sounds like this is locked into windows via the Media Foundation APIs

FYI, Chrome also implements these. It is "embrace and extend", but it's collaboration between MS, Google and (possibly) Apple, and is not tied to any particular platform.

DRM, just remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll say it once and say it again. If you can stream it, you can capture it. They can put any DRM on it, and all I have to do is connect video capturing software. DRM only limits interoperability.

This is what you get.

[meustrus]

All you people that mercilessly assaulted the idea of HTML5 DRM extensions, this is the result. If there's no standardized way for Netflix to not use Silverlight, then they'll just use something else proprietary. How likely do you think it is that Firefox will get these proprietary extensions? Sure DRM is evil and ineffective, but pointing that out won't make it go away. There has to be some way that every browser can build in the hooks and let a web site install their own DRM plugin without needing to restart anything. Oh wait, we could have had that but you said no!

Where Stallman says no, Ballmer sees opportunity for big profit.

Re:This is what you get.

[Microlith]

All you people that mercilessly assaulted the idea of HTML5 DRM extensions, this is the result.

This is the result? An implementation of said HTML5 DRM extensions?

How likely do you think it is that Firefox will get these proprietary extensions?

Work on the literacy bit, then you'll find that even if Firefox implemented ECE there's no guarantee that the module would even function in Firefox.

Sure DRM is evil and ineffective, but pointing that out won't make it go away.

So we shouldn't ever criticize it?

There has to be some way that every browser can build in the hooks and let a web site install their own DRM plugin without needing to restart anything.

Yeah, just what I want. DRM plugins from every website that wants to install one.

Stupid DRM apologists.

Re:This is what you get.

[Microlith]

Where Stallman says no, Ballmer sees opportunity for big profit.

Missed this one.

Stallman says "no" because it would screw individuals in the long term. Ballmer wouldn't hesitate to screw users in the long term if it meant big profits. That's the nature of sociopathic corporations.

Re:This is what you get.

[meustrus]

The end result is still users getting screwed in the long term. If it's inevitable, then we should at least try to make it not as bad. It's not like we're really going to solve any open culture problems anyway until the "content publishing" industries go away and everyone is in a real free market trying to publish things themselves (with the internet).

Re:This is what you get.

[Anonymous Coward]

You neglect to respond to the point that this is an implementation of the "standards" that you were cheering for in the OP, and it's just as proprietary and even more platform/browser-specific than anything based on Flash or Silverlight.

Re:HTML5 is now officially been Embraced and Exten

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why any of this crap is worth the effort. If you eventually show it on screen there will always be a way to pull it from there, even if as a last resort you have to point a video camera at the screen to capture it. It won't actually stop piracy, just slow it down a bit at the cost of a bunch of black-box plugins that provide more area for security issues and that consume CPU cycles and laptop batteries while being less compatible. There's not a single plus for the consumer. It's all negative.

I guess I won't be getting Netflix any time soon.

DRM is not necessary

[sixsixtysix]

Any argument made that says DRM is completely necessary for video MUST also be true for music or books.
We already know that is not true.
Video is not some special magical thing that needs different protection. IP is IP is IP. End of story.

You're not getting it.

[tlambert]

I don't have to install a plugin. I have to install an extension instead. Can someone tell me how/why this is better/different? FFS!

A) people don't like Silverlight

B) the rumor is Microsoft is dropping Silverlight

If (B) is true then you probably want some sort of alternative. For example, depending on how they code, the plug-in could be fairly modular. If that company / group goes belly-up then hopefully by then there are more modules to pick from.

It's an extension to the HTML5 specification, not an extension to the browser.

There is no plug-in, it's a protocol change that all HTML5 compliant browsers which meet the W3C specification are expected to implement.

Think of it as the new "blink tag".

I never saw anybody but Netflix use silverlight.

[Medievalist]

If the closed source vendors didn't regularly make their old products obsolete, they'd have to work harder on a slimmer profit margin, and that's not their business model. They want to get rich, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

But for many enterprises, basing critically important operating software on something that won't evaporate next quarter makes more sense.

For example, if you set your company DNS up on a BIND server 20 years ago, and you're still running on it, you'll have spent significantly less on software maintenance and hardware to achieve the same level of security, reliability and interoperability that could have been provided through any other means.

Microsoft legitimately tries (unlike some companies) to provide strong backwards compatibility, so that staying on the treadmill of upgrades is not excessively onerous (just expensive) and they have slowly become much better about releasing patches in a timely fashion (though they still can't match open source on that front). The whole silverlight/.NET debacle shows, though, that their business model is still the same as other proprietary vendors, still relying on costly forced upgrades.

question?

[Anonymous Coward]

so .. uhm ... i can "remote desktop" to the computer that has this netflix running?
on a side note, this will just spur more computer sells, because in my case, i have already given up the fight
and have one computer exclusive just for windows and steam. it's a "monster machine" but it only plays games.
everything else is on *nix. waiting for the ARM based what-ever-OS netflix only box (maybe with remote desktop capabilities?)

My employer.......

[Anonymous Coward]

.......just rolled out a new business application (the backbone of the company's operations really) in, er, um, Silverlight. It's laughable as, a) they touted this app with great fanfare as a major advancement and "future springboard; and, b) designed the app to look exactly the same as the current .NET-based client version. As a result, this new app took no advantage of Silverlight's (impressive) capabilities for UI design and, instead, it looks/feels/functions EXACTLY the same as the old app which is an absolute pig and resembles Visual Studio circa. 2004.

I hate my corporate IT department.